


The Future Started Yesterday

by monicawoe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Body Horror, Hallucinations, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Medical Torture, Nightmares, Seizures, involuntary drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6144406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monicawoe/pseuds/monicawoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2011, the final S.H.I.E.L.D expedition searching for Steve Rogers found nothing.<br/>In 2014, Hydra completed Project Insight and launched three armed helicarriers, killing millions.<br/>In 2028, Tony Stark was killed *<br/>In 2043, the Winter Soldier was decommissioned after 157 successful missions.<br/>In 2111, Steve Rogers was found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to my two awesome betas [Speranza](http://archiveofourown.org/users/speranza)  
> and [Luckyraeve](http://luckyraeve.tumblr.com/) <3

Steve woke up to the sound of the radio; there was a ballgame playing.

_"...Wouldn't the youngster like a hit here to return the favor? Pete leans in. Here's the pitch."_

A soft breeze came in through the window. It was a hospital room, or something like it—walls drab green and yellowed-white.

_"...three runs will score. Resier heads to third. Durocher's going to wave him in. Here comes the relay, but they won't get him."_

The door opened, and a woman—an army nurse—walked in. "Good morning," she said with a smile, glancing down at her wrist watch. "Or should I say afternoon."

"Where am I?"

"You're in a recovery room in New York City."

Steve's head ached. He remembered the Valkyrie, the bombs, Peggy's voice on the radio as she pleaded with him not to...

_"The Dodgers take the lead, 8-4. Oh, Dodgers! everyone is on their feet. What a game we have here today, folks. What a game, indeed."_

_8-4, the Dodgers. "Hell of a game, ain't it Steve?" Bucky said as he grabbed him by the shoulder._

"Where am I really?" Steve asked the nurse.

"I'm afraid I don't understand." Her smile was still firmly in place, and just as empty as before.

"The game," Steve said, temper rising. "It's from May 1941. I know, 'cause I was there." Steve stood up, moved towards her. "Now I'm gonna ask you again: where am I?"

"Captain Rogers..."

"Who are you?" he snapped, and he could have sworn he saw the edges of her flicker. The room closed in on him, restrictive and wrong, it's artificiality more cloying by the second.

Steve made a run for it, brushing past the woman, who vanished completely, like she'd never been there at all. He brought his arms up over his face just in time to slam through the wall, barreling through it. He landed on the floor, a rain of glass shards skittering past him. The hallway outside was grid-marked and sterile and he'd barely taken a step before a door opened and a half dozen soldiers filed in—armored in shining metal like nothing Steve had ever seen. Robots, he realized, when one of them raised its arm and an array of slim gun barrels unfolded from it.

A voice came from all around him. _"Captain Rogers, remain where you are."_

He knew that voice. And though he couldn't place it, the bone-deep familiarity of it sent Steve's panic into a fevered pitch. He ran towards the nearest door, smashed through it, with no plan beyond out out out.

_"Theta protocol. Initiate retrieval."_

Steve rounded the corner and nearly barreled into a man in uniform. He stared at Steve, then pushed against a small headset around his ear. A lens flickered in front of his eye as he drew his sidearm. "Understood, sir."

Steve dodged out of the way of the shot, throwing himself towards the nearest door, which shattered on impact, exploding in chunks of particle board. He ran on, from one hallway to another, filled with more uniformed people that all turned instantly towards him—and lunged.

Steve bolted again—running through the seemingly endless maze of halls until he finally saw daylight, and a door that led outside. He skidded past a woman holding an umbrella, out onto the street, where a taxi grazed him as it sped by.

It took him a second to process that the taxi didn't have any wheels. Neither did any of the other cars whizzing by. Steve ran, weaving between them, heart pounding in his chest. The road led to an intersection and what he saw there stopped him in his tracks. He'd been here before, dozens of times. Times Square. He knew the shape of some of the buildings, some of the streets, but everything else was wrong. There were bright, ever-changing images on monitors- like moving pictures—selling food and clothing and things he couldn't even identify, but on every screen, in every corner, was the same symbol: a stylized, red Z that looked like an hourglass. It made him think of another awful symbol, gave him the same gut-curdling feel. Hydra's tentacles were still here, and they'd lodged themselves in his city.

 _Zola watches over you._ The moving text under the hourglass said. _Zola protects you._

The image faded again as a voice from behind him said. "At ease, soldier."

He turned to find a hulking metal construct blocking his path. Where the robots inside had been designed for speed and mobility, this one was an engine of war—its limbs wide and heavy, its legs lined with rockets, and atop its torso, sat not a head, not a face, but a projected image of one he knew all too well.

"Arnim Zola," Steve said under his breath, fists clenching.

"In the metaphorical flesh." The face in the monitor smiled. "I apologize for my small act of deception. I assure you, I had only your best interests at heart. I thought it best to break it to you slowly." Its grin widened.

"Break what?" Steve asked.

"You have been sleeping, Captain. For one hundred and seventy years."

Steve felt the fight drain out of him. Everything he wanted to ask this madman seemed, for the moment, irrelevant. Everyone he'd ever known was gone and dead. Steve thought of Bucky, heard his voice crying out as he fell endlessly down. Bucky died trying to save the world from Hydra's madness. Steve had given his life for the same cause, his body just hadn't had enough sense to stay dead. He turned to Zola, anger pulsing in his veins. "Can't say I like what you've done with the place."

Zola laughed—a mechanical, grating sound that set Steve's teeth on edge. "I cannot take all the credit. It took decades, Captain, but we did not relent. Hydra chipped away at this world, made it ready for me. Then, when Hydra outlived its usefulness, I put an end to it, swallowed all its heads. And the people of this world gave themselves over willingly—asked me to lead, to protect them."

"People would never give themselves to you willingly." Steve said, still able to muster up conviction, unsteady as it felt at that moment. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Zola gestured to the sidewalks, to the people going about their day like nothing unusual was going on. "Where are the riots then? Where are the protests?"

"Right here," Steve said, slamming his fist forward. The Zola robot stumbled back a step, nothing more, but that was all Steve needed. He jumped up, delivering a hard kick and then another, using the weight of the robot to catapult himself away from Zola and out into the street. He landed easily on top of a nearby hover-car and broke into a run, jumping from one to the other.

Behind him, he heard Zola sigh. "You are only delaying the inevitable. My drones will catch you."

Something fast and silver sped past Steve's left, then again, past his right. He saw more of the silver shapes hurtle past him as he kept up his pace, moving from one car to another larger vehicle—a freight truck, maybe. It came to a hard stop, blocking his path; there were no more cars to jump to. Six silver humanoid forms hovered in front of him, six more flanking his right and left, with more closing in from behind. He was surrounded.

 _"Come, Captain Rogers,"_ Zola's voice said—echoed simultaneously by every one of the robots. _"Enough of this. Bring him to detention cell 14."_

The robot-drone directly across from Steve raised one slender arm and a narrow cylinder slid out of its wrist. The drones to its left and right copied its movement, as did all the others. As one, the cylinders lit up bright blue, growing more and more intense. Steve shielded his eyes; something snapped into place around him—a force-field, invisible but solid, cutting him off from the city's sounds. Then the air inside the force-field began to change, filling the bubble with pressure—it pulled low in his gut, and his ears popped like in a submerging submarine.

#

The pressure cut out all at once, as did the light. Steve opened his eyes and found he was somewhere else entirely.

A large, empty room, with walls of opaque, white glass. There were faint shadows beyond, maybe other captives, maybe more of the drones.

"Hey!" Steve pounded against the wall, testing its strength, trying to get the attention of the shadow closest to him, but there was no response, and the wall didn't so much as shudder.

The room was bare, save for a toilet in one corner, and a sunken rectangle in the rear right, where the floor was slightly softer—an embedded mat for sleeping. Steve paced the room for a few minutes then kicked at the wall with all the force he could put behind it. It didn't so much as tremble.

Steve stood where he was, frustrated, and had to work to keep his breathing and his heart steady. He'd survived the plane crash, and somehow, _somehow_ he'd slept through _170 years_ in an icy underwater grave. And in those decades, the world had fallen to Hydra. His fists clenched as he thought of Zola's voice, remembered the train—Bucky hanging from its side, his scream when he fell.

From the corner of his eye, Steve saw a shadow pass along the wall to his right. It walked evenly—too evenly to be human. It paused by the center of the wall directly across from Steve and reached out a hand. A door formed, the drone stepped through, and Steve took his chances, immediately lunging forward, determined to knock it aside and get out.

A loud pulse of light from the robot's chest caught Steve off guard and knocked his feet out from under him.

Steve leapt back up, but the wall behind the robot was smooth again, like there'd never been a door at all. He waited, tensed, for his next move.

The drone stayed where it was, unmoving for another three seconds and then brought one of its spindly hands to its chest. A small compartment opened, revealing a flat metal box.

Anticipating another attack or possibly a restraining device, Steve shifted his weight, ready to defend himself.

The drone crouched down, servos hissing, and placed the box on the floor. The box unfolded, becoming a tray filled with small containers of food—one with bread, one with rice and green bits that had to be vegetables and a rectangular slab of what could be meat.

The robot took three steps backwards until it was nearly against the wall and went completely still again.

"You just gonna stand there?" Steve asked.

There was no response.

Irritated and still unable to shake the underlying current of fear he'd felt since waking up in this nightmare, Steve walked away from the drone and the food and sat down on the sunken square of bed. Maybe the drone would leave if it thought he was going to sleep. He settled on his side, back to the wall, head resting against the lightly padded surface, and watched his guard.

His mind drifted, sorting through the impossibilities that made up his life; scattershot memories— _Zola's "Z" in Times Square, the low rumble of the Valkyrie's engine stuttering as he forced it underwater, Peggy's voice, Peggy's smile, that red dress; Bucky's laugh, Bucky's arms around him, the two of them at the beach in '38, at dinner when they were kids; Steve's mom, her stew, and her loving warmth. "Steven, you need to keep your strength up," she said. "Can't go outside if you don't finish your soup."_

Something tickled his cheek, and he scratched at the spot absently, resolutely ignoring his growling stomach. He hadn't eaten anything in—well decades—and he felt it. And logically there was no reason his captors would poison the food, it wouldn't give them any advantage they didn't already have.

"Eat the food," the drone said. Its voice was even, completely neutral.

"Not hungry."

"Please, eat the food."

Steve sat up. "I'd rather eat alone."

The robot cocked its head, like it was thinking, or listening to something. Then it started walking towards Steve.

Ready for another attack, Steve kept his body still, but tightened his arms and hamstrings, ready to jump when the drone came closer.

But the drone stopped three feet away from Steve and its face-plate began to slide up, revealing a human face, a woman's face: _his mother's_ face— just the way Steve remembered. Even her hair was the same grey-muted-blonde of her later years.

"Steven," the thing wearing her face said, "you need to keep your strength up. Can't go outside if you don't finish your soup." It sounded _exactly like her._

Bile welled in Steve's throat and his voice came out jagged with quiet horror, "Stop that."

The drone snapped its jaw shut and the faceplate slid back down. "Eat the food, or we will initiate sedation and feed you intravenously."

Steve forced his legs steady as he stood, walked over to the tray, picked up the 'bread,' and stuck it in his mouth, tearing a chunk off with his teeth as he weighed the tray in his grip. It was made of a solid, but lightweight metal, not heavy enough to serve as much more than a distraction. But that was all he needed. He swallowed down the piece of bread, untwisted the small cup filled with water to take a sip and then flung the tray at the drone's neck. It raised an arm to deflect the tray, exposing the delicate circuitry underneath its arm. Steve wasted no time, flinging the rest of the water at the exposed cables. The drone didn't so much as spark, and it didn't retaliate. It retreated, taking another two steps backwards. "Query: Initiate sedation procedures?"

"Just try it," Steve seethed.

But the question hadn't been directed at him. The answer came in the form of another door opening right behind the robot. Along the same wall, but in a completely different spot from where it had been before, Steve rushed forwards, but it solidified again just before he could reach it. He pounded his fists against the empty white surface in impotent rage.

#

After salvaging what he could of the scattered food, Steve's stomach felt somewhat more settled. His mind, however, was anything but. That drone had read his thoughts. Mimicked his mother's face perfectly. And if it knew what was in his mind, then...he had no chance of ever taking it by surprise.

If the drone knew what was in his head, then Zola knew what was in his mind. He paced back and forth, and then came to a decision. Planting his feet he stood still and thought about Zola. How irrelevant he'd been, how small he'd seemed next to Schmidt. How Steve couldn't take him seriously, even now when he seemed all-powerful.

He waited for the door to hiss open—waited for Zola's voice to echo through the room, chastising him, righting his ill-conceived thoughts.

Nothing happened. Steve's confusion grew. He tried again, concentrating harder, fists curled until his nails dug little crescents into the folds of his palms. _Zola is a coward. And a fool._

But still, the walls stayed silent and closed. Steve sat on the bed, staring straight ahead. After an hour, maybe two, the ambient light began seeping from the walls, little by little, until it was completely dark. Using his hands to feel his way around the room, Steve walked the perimeter, and after his eyes had adjusted fully, he could just make out faint shadows—Zola's drones patrolling the halls, though not one stopped by his room.

His body and brain were exhausted, so he returned to the bed, laid on his side, staring at the wall. The thought of closing his eyes, of falling asleep again, terrified him. He'd slept for nearly two centuries. He kept himself awake by thinking of every memory he could in reverse order. The plane, Peggy on the radio, the bombed out bar near Azzano, Bucky's scream as he fell from the train, Bucky that night in the tent, where he'd wept in Steve's arms, Bucky who hadn't cried since that fight with his dad. Bucky tanned and gleaming with ocean water, cool drops hitting Steve's hot skin. Steve clenched his eyes shut, curling in on himself, the pain of loss a physical thing. He imagined himself back in the ice, felt himself become a small dot in an endless sea of cold, wished more than anything for Bucky's strong arms around him, for the press of his lips against the back of his head.

#

Footsteps jarred Steve awake. There was a shadow outside the darkened room, coming closer. It moved like a man, broad-shouldered and sure-footed.

Steve stayed where he was, muscles coiled. He didn't know if the figure was headed to his cell, but his gut was sure of it. He lifted his head up an inch, so he could see over the edge of the sunken bed. Something tingled along the edge of his temple. He ignored the itch, didn't need any unnecessary movements if they could be avoided. But on the edge of his periphery, he saw something moving, something red—twitching with a whisper of a hiss as it coiled right by the corner of his eye.

He grabbed for it, and his fingers came away covered in spider-webs—red and still moving. They sparked as Steve ground them apart between his fingertips. The metallic dust floated down onto his mattress, and Steve caught another glimpse of red webbing there, in between the white blanket fibers. He leaned down close, squinting in the dim room, but it was unmistakable—the whole mattress was riddled with those thin red webs. Some kind of sensor-array that let the drones read his thoughts.

The boot steps came closer, and as the figure turned the corner the wall flickered and a new door formed.

A soldier stepped through. He was dressed head to toe in blue; his long hair obscured his eyes as he crouched down to set the tray he was carrying on the floor. With a soft push from his left, armored hand, he sent the tray sliding across the floor. It came to a stop less than two feet away from Steve. The lights came on, the room's walls glowing slowly brighter. Only then did Steve notice how tattered the soldier's uniform was. His left sleeve was torn off completely, and had been replaced by metal armor—no...not armor. His whole left arm was made of metal. It was articulated differently than the Zola-drones, designed more like human musculature.

The soldier stood, squared his shoulders and went perfectly still, much like the robot had. His expression was empty, eyes focused straight ahead, staring at an empty spot on the opposite wall. The lights came up to full strength, underlining the sallow pallor of his skin, the hollows of his eyes, the curve of his lips.

And then Steve's breath caught in his throat. Because he knew that face. He'd known that face his whole life. "Bucky?" he asked, mind reeling.

The soldier looked at him, brow furrowed. His shoulders were tensed, ready for a fight. It was how Bucky had always looked before the bloodiest battles during the war. It was _Bucky_. And he had no idea who Steve was.

The truth of what Steve was seeing, amplified by terror and broken hope, came bearing down on him, heavy as lead. He knew now what had happened—what Zola had done. "One of your tin men, right?" he asked the room, certain that Zola, whatever he was—wherever he was—could hear him. "You made it look like this." He crossed the room until he came to a stop less than three feet away from the drone. "Like _him_." His voice was climbing, shaky with fury.

This was a cruel joke. It had to be. Either that or he was having a nightmare. Maybe he was still in the ice, maybe he was dead, maybe he'd died back in Brooklyn, in Erskine's contraption. Maybe he was in Hell. "I never even got to say goodbye!" Steve threw a punch.

The robot caught it with his left hand, iron grip pushing Steve back until he stumbled back a step. He looked confused—bewildered. A few years older, but so much like Bucky it made Steve's heart clench.

Steve rushed forward, switching his stance last minute to try and land a kick to the soldier's knee, but the soldier evaded him, bringing his own leg out and around in a hook that caught Steve by the ankle. Steve went crashing to the floor.

Inhumanly strong fingers closed on his neck, holding him down. The soldier's knee followed, pressing into his back. "Don't," he said. The voice sounded human enough, despite his iron grip.

Steve let his body relax, just enough to make the soldier think he was surrendering, and the moment his grip loosened, Steve slammed his elbow up into the soldier's ribs. That got him enough wiggle room to break free. He rolled out of the soldier's hold, kicked him hard in the chest and sent him colliding with the opposite wall.

A blinding fury gripped Steve then, so all-consuming it made his anger from a few moments earlier seem pitiful by comparison. He stalked across the floor, vision bleeding red. "You don't get to wear his face. You don't get to have him."

This time he was fast enough. His punch landed on the robot's cheek, with a satisfying crack, nearly identical to the sound of bone splitting. They'd made it look so lifelike. But Steve fought past the revulsion he felt, driven on by righteous violence. He landed another blow and another, breaking the robot's nose and then his lip.

His knuckles came away bloody. Red dripped down the robot's ruined face, from its nose, its mouth, the gashes in its cheeks...and time slowed to a crawl. Steve had seen Bucky bruised and beaten before, after back-alley fights in Brooklyn, but he'd only looked this bad once—the night they got ambushed in Augsburg. The thing that looked like his dead best friend lifted its hand, swiped at the blood pooling on its lips and that movement was so familiar it made Steve's stomach turn. "Bucky?" The name slipped out like a reflex. But it couldn't be him. He'd died back in '45. Steve had seen him fall. He'd seen him fall.

"Initiating sedation protocol," a voice from the walls said. All around the room, tiny dime-sized holes hissed opened. Gas plumed into the air, and within seconds, Steve's vision began to blur. The soldier— _Bucky_ —put his hand against the wall, struggling to stay upright before he lurched forward and his knees gave out. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious, still bleeding.

Steve darted forward, tried to keep Bucky from falling. But the gas had hit him quick too and Steve's own knees buckled when he caught Bucky's weight. They hit the floor, Steve's head slamming against the unforgiving surface; all the adrenaline drained out of him in one violent shudder, and with the last of his strength, he dragged himself along the floor by the tips of his fingers, struggling to get closer to Bucky.

 

#

Steve's dreams were filled with ice water, the stifling darkness of the ocean—a thousand feet below. He looked up and saw light dancing on the surface. It paused and hovered when they finally found him. Thick iron hooks dropped down with a splash, pierced his skin, sent hazy ribbons of red curling into the water around him like smoke, like breath.

The hooks pulled on his heavy flesh, and dragged him up—out through the surface of the ocean and high into the air, left him dangling from chains. He was suspended over the deck of a ship—a warship. A massive carrier, with a dozen planes, all of them carrying bombs. His blood dripped down onto the deck, along with fat drops of water, pooling together to form a mirror.

"Drop him," Peggy's voice said.

The chain-links holding him snapped apart, and Steve fell to the floor in a heap. One of the hooks was still deep in his shoulder. He pulled it out, biting down hard against the pain.

Steve pushed himself to his elbows, blinking through the water still dripping sluggishly into his eyes, and looked up. Peggy's silhouette stood out starkly in the bright floodlights of the carrier, but the features of her face were hidden in shadow.

A hand grabbed him by the chin. "Would 'ya look at that?" Bucky was wearing his uniform, dressed crisply—his skin was pale, and he had a gash across his cheek, deep enough that Steve saw bone by the edge of his chin. "What makes you so damn special?" he asked. There was no anger in his voice, just curiosity.

Steve tried to answer, but Bucky's grip was too strong. He couldn't open his mouth enough to answer. Bucky's face turned to a snarl, as his skin knit itself together—little red tendrils that sparked with electricity weaving in and out of his flesh. "How come you got to sleep while the world went to shit?"

 _I don't know. I wish I hadn't_ Steve thought, but with his mouth clamped shut, all he could do was make a pitiful, soft groan.

"The serum was wasted on you," Peggy said. "If we'd known you were going to squander it, we'd have found someone else—someone who was truly worthy." Her silhouette moved, as she turned to the side, and Steve caught glimpses of red in her brown hair, the blush of her lips. She reached one slender hand into her pocket and pulled out a glowing blue syringe.

Bucky let go of Steve, and straightened. "Should've stayed home, Stevie." He shrugged out of his uniform jacket and loosened the collar of his shirt. "Should've listened to me."

Steve could've answered now, could've said something, but he couldn't think of a thing to say. Because Bucky was right.  
  
Peggy prepped the syringe, yanked Bucky's shirt collar down and brought the needle to his throat.

The needle pierced Bucky's skin, and he ran his bottom lip through his teeth, more of a smile than a wince.

Peggy pushed the syringe's plunger down, sending the glowing blue into Bucky's veins. Bucky's eyes rolled back into his head and his dress shirt began to char, curling red-edged like burning newsprint. It flaked off as ash, drifting up into the air. Steve remembered the feel of the serum, the terrible heat of it, and saw Bucky's skin gleaming with sweat as the muscles underneath began to change, undulating. His shoulders and chest grew thicker, his arms swelled and when he rolled his neck, the few remaining strips of fabric fell away. But his skin was still heating up, burning, charring as his shirt had. Steve struggled to push himself to his knees, desperate to help him. He grabbed hold of Bucky's forearm, but his grip slipped, taking a long strip of skin with it, peeling Bucky's whole forearm bare. The burnt flesh flaked off, and underneath, metal gleamed where there should have been muscle and bone.

Steve fell back in horror, and Bucky grabbed him by the neck, the skin on his face flaking off just as quickly, revealing more gleaming metal underneath. The exposed half looked exactly like one of Zola's faceless automatons. "Wasn't for you, I'd still be alive."

"I'm sorry," Steve said, "I'm so sorry."

"Tell that to the world," Bucky said, and then he tossed Steve aside, sent him hurtling over the side of the carrier. But there was no ocean below, just an endless, snow-filled chasm. Steve fell and fell and the screams in his ears sounded like Bucky's.

#

 

"...the truth is, it was sentimentality."

Steve woke with a start, heart racing. He was still in the glass room, alone. But someone was talking to him. _Zola_ was talking to him.

"I should have disposed of Sergeant Barnes years ago. He is _obsolete_. A relic. But once, he was my greatest achievement."

"What did you do to him?" Steve asked, throat dry with dread.

"He spent the last several decades in cold storage, until today. But then again..." Zola chuckled, the floor vibrating with the sound. "...so did you."

Steve sat up, and saw Zola's face in the wall—eight feet high, but otherwise unchanged: spectacles around beady eyes, underlined by a self-satisfied smirk. "What did you do?" he asked again.

"Ninety six years ago, humanity was under attack by an artificial intelligence. It created thousands of robot bodies to eradicate the world's population. But it was not aware of my existence. I...overrode it with my own, superior code, took control of these units, and saved humanity in the process."

"Saved?" Steve scoffed.

But Zola ignored him. "In the decades since, I have perfected my drones. They are an extension of my will. Autonomous to a point, but only when I give them a command. They require very little maintenance, and are quite simple to repair."

Steve turned his back on the projected image.

"There was a time, Captain, when you were the pinnacle of scientific progress. But that is no longer the case. Now, you are nothing more than my trophy." Zola switched his projected image to the wall Steve was now facing. "I shall put you next to Barnes, in my decommissioned weapons archive."

Steve's rage broiled under his skin. "I want to see him."

"Was your reunion insufficient? I found it...quite touching."

Steve stepped closer to the wall, knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists. "I want to see him. Now."

"As you wish, Captain."

Zola's face disappeared, and a still image took his place—Bucky, dead—a mangled mess of flesh, blood and bone where his left arm should have been. The waist of his blue coat was stained a deep blood-black and his right leg lay twisted unnaturally, a bone splinter sticking out of the thigh.

"They found him like this, bleeding out, but still alive. Thanks to my gift."

" _Gift_?"

"Don't play dumb. Since you so rudely interrupted me, I didn't get to finish my experiments, but...surely you noticed _some_ changes in your friend, yes?"

_Steve had noticed, of course he had, but Bucky refused to talk about it; then again he didn't have to—the shadows under his eyes, the pained noises he made in his sleep, the heat pouring off of him at night—even in the dead of winter. The day he got a stray bullet in his calf and didn't notice he was bleeding until Steve did._

"I had only a minuscule, diluted sample of Doctor Erskine's formula to work with, but it was enough for me to create my own version of his serum. The 107th provided me with many test subjects. Sergeant Barnes was the sole survivor."

Steve swallowed, forced himself to watch as new images appeared: Bucky stripped naked—deep gashes in his chest and side, ribs jutting out; his torso bandaged, the wreck of his arm sawed off clean.

"We replaced his missing limb with a Department-X prototype." More photos flashed across the wall—of Bucky's new arm—sleek, gleaming metal. "The most advanced model of its time—far beyond what most robotics divisions were able to accomplish even well into the twenty-first century."

Moving images now showed the arm being attached to Bucky's shoulder. There was an oxygen mask covering his face, needles in his veins, keeping him drugged, keeping him unaware. Bile welled in Steve's throat as he watched gloved hands peel back Bucky's skin, push apart the raw flesh of his chest and fuse metal strips to his bones. The shoulder joint itself was worse, the large metal socket soldered on by a whole team of engineers wearing welding goggles, arranging Bucky's limp form without any care. Like he was a piece of machinery.

"But the arm wasn't all we gave him," Zola said. The pictures changed again—Bucky, stitched back together, angry looking scars surrounding his shoulder and chest. "Sergeant Barnes survived his fall, but he was not whole. Retrograde amnesia." Sensors were attached to Bucky's temples, his mouth moved as he answered questions, eyes emptier than anyone's should ever be. "He had no idea who he was, but he knew _what_ he was. A soldier. A killer."

Pictures flitted across the walls, faster now—Bucky in combat training, fighting against a dozen different opponents. Landing every strike, dodging every blow. He was faster than Steve had ever seen him—moving with deadly, terrifying accuracy.

"Can you imagine what that must be like? A soldier without a war?"

 _No,_ Steve thought, because his war never ended. But after Bucky fell from that train, Steve knew a much greater emptiness.

"It's a terrible thing, to not have a purpose," Zola said. "So we gave him one."

The images changed again, the first two rows all showing a different date-stamp, but otherwise nearly identical. They were shots of the same metal cylinder with a frost-covered window—Bucky's sleeping face behind it. And underneath that row, another set of images, labeled photos of the dead: senators, ambassadors, royalty, all of them killed with a clean bullet-wound, right between the eyes.

"He was Hydra's silent blade, the ghost of death. He helped us get a foothold in every office of power, in every country, on every part of the globe until we were _everywhere._ "

"He had no choice."

"No. Though there were occasional days where he fought against us."

A movie played, full audio: _Men in white, questioning Bucky, who ignored each question but the last. "What were you looking for?"_

_"Home," Bucky said, eyes downcast. He was strapped into a large chair—surrounded by monitors and cables. There were sensors attached to his chest, his arm, and a needle stuck into his hand, feeding him something from a clear sack of plastic suspended above._

_"What was that?"_

_Bucky looked up. "I need to get home. He's sick."_

_"Who's sick?"_

_Bucky blinked, but said nothing else._

_"Answer the question, soldier. Who is sick?"_

_Jaw clenched, Bucky stared silently at him._

_"Start erasure procedure," said a familiar voice via an intercom. Zola's voice._

_Bucky's nostrils flared. A flicker of fear. Then the chair moved, began to tilt back. One of the men on his side grabbed him roughly by the chin, forced his mouth open and shoved a rubber bit inside._

_From above, a large metal halo lowered itself around Bucky's head. It crackled with electricity, as it closed around his temples. His body shook, his back arched, his body went rigid, and he screamed._

"No!" Steve shouted, horrified, only peripherally aware that what he was watching had already happened.

"Some days he resisted." Zola's voice drowned out Bucky's screams, and the image went still. "But what are a few pitiful hours against decades of obedience?"

"I'm going to kill you," Steve said. It was a promise. A certainty.

"You cannot kill one who has transcended death."

Steve walked closer to the wall until he was less than an inch away. "I'll find a way. I'll make it slow. Give you plenty of time to tell me how to put Bucky's memories back where they belong." The wall shuddered, quivered along with the floor, and this time, Zola wasn't laughing. Amidst the white-noise-numb fury in his head, Steve thought, for one hysterical second, that his rage had grown that powerful—that seeing Bucky had unlocked something inside of him so violent, the building itself couldn't stand.

Though logically, Steve knew the shockwave hadn't come from him, he closed his eyes and felt a thrill when another wave hit and then another. An earthquake maybe, or something worse. "I'll undo whatever you did to him, make him whole, and then we'll kill you together."

"We shall continue this conversation later, Captain." Zola said. "There appear to be some flies in need of swatting." His face vanished from the walls.

Leaning his ear against the wall, Steve listened for another rumble, for voices, for anything that would tell him what was happening.

Steve placed his hands against the wall, set his feet firmly against the floor and pushed, as hard as he could. This was the weakest part, structurally speaking, and even if he only got it to fracture that'd bring him one step closer to freedom.

He pushed until his arms started to shake, until his calves and shoulders screamed in agony, but the wall didn't so much as splinter. Steve stepped back, caught his breath and tried again. This time, the wall shuddered, then _heaved_ , along with the floor. Steve heard a scream—a roar—human but not, and then the lights went off.

The room didn't go dark this time, it went blank—the walls themselves shut down; the soft hum they usually gave off was completely gone; the glass-like material was now completely clear. He saw other cells near him, all of them empty. There was no relief in that realization. Bucky was being held somewhere too, and if not in a cell here, then Steve would search the other levels—however many there were.

No other prisoners, but there was movement in the distance, three shapes—one far larger than the others. And they were coming closer—human, though not quite.

Steve took a defensive stance when they got to within a few feet of him. One of them was most definitely a robot, with heavy metal steps, and a glowing circle of energy on its chest. The other looked more human, tall and broad with a flowing cape and a weapon in his hand, and the third—Steve could've sworn the third had been larger a moment ago. The robot held out something—a shirt—to the larger one who was...shrinking, from the look of it. Without breaking their stride, the three came right up to his cell. And the one wearing a cape called out, "Step back!"

Steve listened, too confused to protest, and took a big step back.

The tall man swung his giant hammer, and brought it crashing against the wall, which spider-webbed, cracks branching out all the way to the corners like forks of lightning. He hit the wall again, in the exact same spot and then once more, and the wall shattered, sending a rain of tiny shards skittering across the floor, inches away from Steve's feet.

Standing across from them, now no longer separated by the glass, were three figures. One taller than Steve—broad, with long braided hair, heavy armor, a red cape, holding a hammer; a gold and red robot with a glowing blue disc in its center; and an older man in frayed pants buttoning his shirt, who looked so ordinary he seemed out of place in the group.

"Holy cow, it's really you," said the robot, in a surprisingly human sounding voice. It was staring right at Steve. "The original Captain freaking America," the robot took a step forwards, hand extended.

Steve was taken aback. The whole situation was too surreal, even in this cursed future. "Who are you?" he asked.

The robot withdrew its hand, squared its shoulders in a distinctly human fashion. "Tony Stark, formerly in the flesh, now not so much."

"Stark? As in Howard?" Steve asked.

"As in _Tony_ ," the robot said again. He sounded vaguely annoyed.

"Bruce Banner," the smaller man said, holding out his hand. His handshake was overly gentle, hesitant.

"And I am Thor Odinson of Asgard," said the tallest. "We've come to free you."

"What happened to Zola and his guards?"

"EMP pulsar," Tony said. "Should keep them down for about five minutes. Come on, let's get going." He pointed over his shoulder and turned to leave.

Steve hesitated by the door. "How'd you even know I was here?"

Tony snorted. "How could we not? Zola sent out dozens of guards, used his friggin' teleporter in broad daylight in midtown. Obviously he caught somebody worth saving. Then, when we got close and I saw the biometrics—" He hesitated and sighed; it was odd hearing such a human sound from a machine. "People have been looking for you for a long, long time, buddy."

Steve looked at him, too confused to answer.

"We need to get out of here," Bruce said, voice low.

"Wait— there's someone else being held here," Steve said stepping out into the hall. "A friend of mine."

"Not on this floor," Tony said. "And we don't have time to search the whole place. In five minutes, the—"

"I'm not leaving without him," Steve said.

Tony's shoulders drooped and he tilted his head back, exasperated.

"Any idea where he might be?" Bruce asked.

"He's a prisoner too, but they—they did something to him. He doesn't remember who he is."

"Oh goodie," Tony said.

"Third floor, where he keeps his science projects," Bruce said. "Some of them are human."

"Let's go," Steve said, pushing past the others.

#

The third floor was as empty as the other levels had been, but halfway down the hall he heard someone screaming, heard Bucky screaming. Steve ran forwards, but Thor stopped him, hand on his wrist. "Could be a trap."

Steve met Thor's eyes, stared back evenly until he let go. "That's never stopped me before."

"There's only one heat signature in that room," Tony said. "But I'm picking up something else too, something big."

"How big?" Bruce asked, quietly.

Tony shrugged. "Let's keep code green in reserve, until we know what we're dealing with."

Another pained noise of Bucky's drew Steve closer to the door. He caught a glimpse of the inside of the room. Bucky was strapped to a chair and Zola was standing over him, robotic hands grasping either side of Bucky's head. There was electricity crackling from his palms, the smell of singed hair just underneath. Steve ground his teeth, wishing he had his shield, as he signaled to Tony and then leapt forward, throwing himself with as much force as he could directly into Zola's heavy frame. The robotic body slid little more than an inch, but kept its hands firmly clamped to Bucky's temples.

"Rogers!" yelled Thor, "down!" Steve dropped to his knee, just in time to avoid a flying hammer. It hit Zola with brutal force and knocked him into the opposite wall. Zola righted himself instantly, gun barrels unfurling from his arms and legs in quantity. The weapons began to charge, that same blue light coalescing in each barrel, but then a beam of energy struck him, pinned to the wall.

"Get your friend out of there," Tony said, palm extended. The light-beam was coming from his palm.

"He's whole, Captain, as you requested. Do not say I didn't warn you." Zola's static-riddled visage locked onto Steve. "Some things are best left forgotten."

Steve shook himself out of his stupor and ran to Bucky's side. Bucky's eyes were open, but unfocused. His mouth was moving, soundless words spilling out of him. The swollen bruises on his cheek and jaw made Steve's insides curdle with shame. "Buck," Steve touched him gently by the shoulder, but Bucky showed no reaction, no sign he knew anyone else was even in the room. "We've got to get out of here," Steve said, pulling on Bucky's arm. "Come on."

A soundless pulse shook the room, knocking Tony and Bruce off their feet. Steve caught himself on the chair, then leaned down to help Bucky stand. Bucky's legs were unsteady, and his eyes were half-shut, but he turned and mumbled "Steve?" and it was the most beautiful thing Steve had heard in years, decades, centuries.

"Yeah, Buck, it's me," Steve hooked Bucky's arm around his neck, pulled him to standing.

Zola straightened, and his guns resumed charging. Thor raised his hammer straight up and brought it down in an arc, sending a thick bolt of lighting into Zola. The robotic body seized and the monitor displaying his face cracked, overloaded. The face settled again, a big jagged split running through its center. "Until we meet again." Then the face blinked out of existence, and the robot slumped, its limbs all falling limp.

"Uh-oh," Tony said.

Bruce turned his head, focused on something none of the others could hear. "Something just blew out the other end of the building."

Tony looked in the same direction as Bruce. "Self destruct's been activated. Probably a fail safe." He raised his arm, palm turned up and shot a blast that burned a hole straight through the ceiling, the floor above and straight through to the open sky. "Thor, go see how Roberta's doing."

Thor spun his hammer in a tight circle, and leapt straight up, flying.

Tony reached his hand out to Steve. "We need to get going."

Steve stepped back, still not convinced he should trust the robot, though he'd done nothing but help him so far. Bucky straightened, stood on his own two legs and looked from Tony to the hole in the ceiling with wary, calculating eyes. To their left, the walls rumbled and shook.

"Let me rephrase that," Tony said. "We need to get going. Now."

"Just-just give us a sec," Steve said.

Bruce cracked his neck and said, "Sorry, no can do." And then he changed. He grew larger and his skin shifted in hue until it was a deep green. He stood a good nine feet tall, and looked more beast than man. Bucky stepped in front of Steve, metal arm raised defensively. But the green behemoth just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, scooped them up—one in each arm like they were toddlers—and leapt up through the hole. One jump, incredibly powerful, incredibly fast. And then they were outside, a good hundred feet up in the air. They landed fifty yards away from the industrial building complex, in an impact cloud of chalk-dry soil. Surrounding the building were old armored vehicles, sitting idle in the remnants of what used to be a forest. The trees left were withered and bare and the earth was cracked and dry.

For all his size, Bruce set them down on the ground with surprising gentleness.

Steve looked immediately to Bucky, who, though dazed, seemed otherwise okay. "Thank you," he said, looking from Bruce to Steve. Then his head whipped back towards the building. "Incoming."

The building quivered as it started to collapse, explosive bursts traveling along its perimeter. And out of the rubble came a metallic swarm—drones—dozens of them.

Bruce growled next to them, and ran forwards into the oncoming barrage, big green hands curling into fists.

One of the drones got past, heading straight for Steve, who grabbed it midair and wrestled it to the ground. Bucky crouched down next to them, curled his metal fingers under the robot's chin and pulled straight back, yanking the drone's head clean off. The body kept moving, limbs twitching like a dying insect.

More metal forms shot out of the pile of rubble. Bruce roared angrily, and leapt back into the sky, grabbing more of the drones as they flew past. But there were twice as many now as before—hundreds of them.

"Batter up!" shouted a woman's voice. Steve turned and saw a woman in blue with red wings directly above them. She was holding a tank, and began to spin, like a discus thrower, then let loose; the tank hurtled through the air and collided with six of the oncoming drones.

"Who's that?" Steve asked, awestruck.

"I don't know, but she's wearing your colors," Bucky said, grabbing another drone from the sky before it could reach Steve.

"Cap!" The woman called out. "Got something of yours." She reached behind her back and Steve's heart leapt when he saw what she was holding. The red white and blue disc hurtled towards him, he reached out and caught it with ease. The shield was a familiar, comforting weight on Steve's arm and he turned back towards the ruins of Zola's compound, with renewed resolve. Just in time to see another swarm of drones heading for them.

The world exploded into chaos around them, the onslaught nearly too fast to keep up with. Steve threw his shield around in a wide arc, slicing into the nearest drones, but it barely slowed them. They only stopped moving when the head was severed, so that's what he targeted, using the edge of his shield like an axe blade.

Lightning arced around them, striking a good two-dozen drones as Thor flew past, hammer held high. They fell to the ground, still sparking, systems overloaded.

Bucky pulled the head off the drone pinned beneath him, Steve took down another two, but the constant stream of attack never slowed. There were dozens more headed at them. Thor and the flying woman were nowhere to be seen, both of them surrounded by a solid sphere of endless robot bodies.

And then something golden swooped down, landed near them. Tony. He sent one energy burst after another at the drones closing in, knocking them down with unerring accuracy.

"Thanks," Steve said, breathless.

"Don't thank me yet," Tony said, picking up one of the drone heads Bucky had discarded. He stuck his hand inside the neck hole and yanked it back out, holding a blue, glowing sphere, then let the empty head drop back to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked.

"These drones are all networked. Everything of Zola's is," Tony said, as his fingers manipulated the orb. "We know he has a short-range kill switch command—seen it in action. So all we have to do..." He held up the core. "...is trigger it. " The blue light in the sphere grew brighter and brighter, and Steve squinted against the light, just able to make out a new rush of drones heading for them. The orb became pure white light and a heavy thrumming vibration poured out of it, strong enough that Steve felt it in his bones.

The light cut out and the drones closing in on them simply _stopped_. They dropped to the earth like deadweights, their combined weight rattling the ground.

"Well done, Stark!" Thor shouted from above.

"Woohoo!" Roberta cheered as she flew in a celebratory loop.

Steve let out a breath of relief and turned to Bucky, who smiled back at him and then began to cough, a horrid, wheezing sound. He was choking.

"Bucky?" Steve gasped, as Bucky clawed at his own throat, then fell—body stiff, back arching painfully.

"He's seizing," Bruce said, loping up next to them, human-sized again.

Steve tried to hold Bucky still, to keep him from hurting himself, but Bucky's muscles were whipcord tight and there was blood trickling out of his mouth along with drool. It was an awful, powerless feeling, to watch his best friend convulse—to be unable to do a damn thing about it. Bucky's eyes were staring at something far away, pupils dilated, wide and black. Then with one last shudder, he fell still.

"Roll him on his side," Bruce said; Steve blinked at him through stinging eyes. Steve's hands shook as he helped Bruce move Bucky so he was resting on his right arm.

Two heavy metal feet touched down behind them. Steve tore his eyes away from Bucky, looked over his shoulder at Tony, and asked, "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing!" Tony said, a small beam of light came out of his eyes, tracing over Steve and Bucky. "I swear, all I did was activate the—" He paused, and the beam flicked off. "Uh oh."

Steve's body coiled with tension—half of his brain demanded he grab Tony and tear him to pieces like he'd done with the drones minutes earlier. But the other, stronger part couldn't bear to stop touching Bucky, not even for a moment, not until he knew he'd be okay. He leaned his head down, closed his eyes and listened, until he heard Bucky's heartbeat, faint as it was. He sat up again, slowly, eyes glued to Bucky's pale face. "What did you do?"

"Triggered all of Zola's kill-switches in a five mile radius. Guess your friend here had one, too."

Steve moved without thought, grabbing Tony by the throat. The metal creaked under his fingers. "Undo it. Whatever you did."

"I can't," Tony said. He didn't sound strained or, frightened. He was stating a fact.

"He's stabilizing," Bruce said. "He'll be okay, but we need to get him back to base, now."

Steve let Tony drop and moved back to Bucky's side.

"I can fly him back," Tony said.

"As can I," Thor said.

Steve slid his arms under Bucky and picked him up, standing. "No."

"Just trying to help, buddy."

"You're not my buddy. I barely even know you," Steve snapped, holding Bucky closer to him. These people had saved him—helped them both escape Zola, but that didn't mean he was going to entrust Bucky to them, not after he'd just gotten him back.

"I'll signal the Digger," Roberta said quietly, flying ahead. "Back in a sec."

"We'll meet you there then," Tony turned to Thor, who began spinning his hammer, creating a swirling vortex directly over their heads. "Bruce?"

Bruce shook his head. "No thanks. Big guy hates Asgardian rapid transit. I'll go with them."

"Suit yourself," Tony said. He gave Thor a nod and the two of them flew up into the swirling clouds above and vanished in a burst of light.

Roberta whistled, announcing her return, and touched down just as the earth behind her burst open in a shower of dirt. A large, metallic _thing_ burrowed out of the earth. Its front was shaped like a giant drill, made of rotating cylinders covered with what looked like spiked tank-treads. Roberta rapped on the side of the vehicle, and a hatch on the side opened.

"What the hell is that?" Steve asked, as he watched her climb in. The door was just large enough for her to fit through. But she was nearly as broad in the shoulders as Steve, and easily as tall. Steve bent carefully and made sure Bucky's head had clearance before stepping through.

"The Digger," Bruce said, sitting down in one of the seats lining the side. "Strap in, this thing's pretty bumpy."

Steve set Bucky down, leaning him against the wall and then sat next to him, strapping them both in and positioning Bucky's head so it was resting on Steve's chest. Last thing he wanted was to give him a concussion while he was already unconscious.

Roberta strapped herself in and pulled off her helmet. It was blue with a faded A on the forehead. It looked like a streamlined version of _his_ old helmet. Steve's eyes trailed down to the rest of her uniform, which looked familiar too: white stripes and a star in the center of the chest.

"Hi, I'm Steve Rogers," he said. "Nice uniform."

"Thanks." She smiled and stuck her hand out to Steve's. "Roberta Mendez." Her grip was firm and warm. "It's a real honor to meet you."

"Did they—" Steve's question was cut off by the loud, grinding-growl of the Digger starting to turn again. Conversation became impossible and Steve shifted his focus to keep Bucky from getting jostled too much.

The Digger wasn't just bumpy, it was rattling them around—shaking loose memories of the skies above the Alps back in forty-three. The transport's exterior was in constant rotation, while the inside stayed stable, but it lacked any shock absorption. Despite the constant noise, Bucky stayed under, making a half-hearted moan once, after a particularly bad bump.

"You want to tell the driver to ease up?" Steve shouted over the din, trying to cradle Bucky's head more effectively.

Bruce chuckled, and Roberta cocked an eyebrow and yelled back, "Nuh-uh. You tell her yourself."

The craft slowed, coming to a rattling halt and the cockpit door opened, just to their right. A small woman stepped out: red hair streaked with silver framing a sharp, considering face. Her eyes flicked down to Bucky then back up to Steve. "Hey there," she said, holding out a hand. "I'm Natasha."

"You honored to meet me, too?" Steve asked.

"Should I be?" She pushed a big round button on the wall, opening the outer hatch. "Last stop. HQ."

"Home sweet home," Roberta said, following Natasha out the door.

Steve picked Bucky up and followed them out of the cramped vehicle into a cave—no—a train tunnel, an old one, with faded, crumbling murals lining the side. Steve slowed as he passed by an intact patch of numbers. "One ninety-first..." He looked up at the arch. This is an...IRT station."

"Has a natural layer of highly ferrous soil," Natasha said. "Helps block Zola's scanners. Plus," she pointed at something ahead —a spindly metal tree, reaching up from floor to ceiling. "We've got that."

It didn't look like much. A messy antennae array maybe, like something he'd seen back in Stark's labs back in the day. "What is it?" Steve asked.

"We call it the scrambler. Banner and Stark pieced it together from scraps Roberta got for us." She nudged Roberta in the shoulder with a smile.

"Only the best for my fellow outlaws," Roberta said grinning. She brought her hands to the back of her head and started to undo her tight braid, freeing her long wavy hair. It ran nearly halfway down her back—her back, which was now considerably narrower, shorter, and far less muscled than it had been seconds earlier. She'd shifted, like a subtler version of what Bruce had done.

"Wow," Steve said, and then flushed, realizing he'd said it out loud.

She smirked up at him. "Neat party trick, huh?"

"Are you...I mean do you and Bruce—"

"Different attempts at recreating Erskine's formula," Tony said, clomping into the room. "Roberta's came from Alchemax—evil company we don't talk about. And Bruce's was his own attempt, which worked out terribly or awesomely depending on your opinion."

Bruce flipped him the finger as he walked past.

"Got that other thing we wanted," Roberta said, walking up to Tony. She pulled a small silver disc out of her utility belt. "Think you can crack it?"

"When have I ever not?" Tony said with a scoff.

Bruce pointed towards a hallway in the back. "Med-lab's down here," he said, waving to Steve to follow.

Steve ignored Tony as they passed, but caught the way the robot glared at him. Apparently, robots could glare.

"Welcome to Avengers HQ—your new home, Cap," he said. "You're _welcome_."

"Thanks," Steve said stiffly. Freedom from Zola didn't mean a damn if Bucky didn't wake up.

#

Bruce ran his fingers through his hair, leaving his grey-streaked-black mop even more unruly than it had been. "Oh boy."

"That's never good," Steve said, looking back at Bucky and the readouts displayed on the clear bridge of plastic covering Bucky's chest and legs. "Doc Benson used to say that every time he listened to my lungs in the winter."

"Well, it's not good," Bruce said, "but it's also kinda..." He sighed and walked closer to the readout, squinting. "Yeah actually it's a lot better than it would've been if Tony hadn't, uh..."

"Hadn't what?" Steve took a step closer too, trying to make sense of the readout. The displayed image was an outline of Bucky's body, with little boxes in white, red and yellow blinking throughout his limbs and torso. "Hadn't flipped that switch and sent Bucky into a coma?"

"It's not a coma, not exactly," Bruce said. "Your friend, he...he OD'd."

"What?"

"His kill-switch was over a hundred years older than the standardized one the bots had." Bruce waved his hand towards the display. "It wasn't electronic, it was chemical. Trigger-release cocktail of lithium and cyanide." He pointed at the numerous white squares spread through the rest of Bucky's body. "But they had other stuff in there too, adrenaline, amphetamines...and uh...something I've never even seen before, and I've seen a lot." He swallowed.

"I'm sorry, how is that a good thing? Or is everything ass-backwards now?"

Bruce's mouth quirked. "Right. That's the bad news. The good news, is that he's metabolizing it—all of it—incredibly fast." His eyes flicked over to Steve. "He got some version of the serum too, right? Something with a trifold amino bond marker in it. Pretty unique composition."

A half-formed answer lodged itself unspoken, in Steve's throat. He didn't know what Bucky's serum was, but he knew he hadn't volunteered for it, had it forced upon him. And Bruce here looked curious. Intrigued, even. But then he met Steve's eyes, recognition flared in his own, and he averted his gaze. "Also good—his synaptic activity is through the roof considering how much junk he has in his veins right now."

"What does that mean?"

"Whatever Zola did to him before we got him out, it's making the old connections in his brain reform."

So...his memories are coming back?"

"Looks like," Bruce said. "Kind of hard to tell how well they're coming back though, until he wakes up."

Steve nodded. "He remembered me."

"He put himself between me and you. _Protected_ you." Bruce cleared his throat. "The other, really good news is that the kill-switch trigger command also short-circuited all of these..." Bruce pointed at the red blips on the screen. "Trackers. Somebody at Hydra really didn't want to lose him. They put in twelve different models over the years."

"You sure there aren't more, any that didn't get knocked out?" Steve asked, counting the boxes again. "What are the yellow ones?"

"Pacemakers, so to speak. Like a backup battery for when..." Bruce looked down at the floor and then back up at the display, "For when his organs aren't up to snuff and they want him out on the field anyway."

Steve's knuckles cracked.

"That's my best guess anyway."

"Can you take them out?"

"Yeah, only...probably not the best idea with him still detoxing." Bruce slipped his glasses back on. "Plus, I prefer consent from my patients themselves whenever possible." He pushed a button on the side of the cot and the clear plastic cover retracted, sliding into the side of the over-wide cot.

"So he's gonna wake up soon?"

"I think so," Bruce nodded. "Well, I mean...soon is relative for people like us, right?" He gave Steve a crooked half-smile that faded as quickly as it had come. "Most likely he'll be out for another day or two, maybe less. He just needs rest. And fluids, which..." He pointed at the IV drip. "That's all taken care of."

Behind Steve there were footsteps, light and careful. Natasha cleared her throat. "Tony decrypted the data."

Bruce's eyes widened. "And?"

She shook her head, glancing at Bucky surreptitiously. "Not what we were hoping for."

Bruce's face fell.

"Tony didn't want you to know we found anything at all, but he doesn't always make the best calls," Natasha said, turning to Steve.

Steve tore his eyes away from Bucky and met Natasha's pale green stare.

"Follow me," she said, turning on her heel.

Steve looked down at Bucky again, hesitant to leave his side.

"He wakes up, you'll be the first one to know," Bruce said. "Promise."

"Thanks," Steve said, and followed Natasha out the door. She led him down the hall, five doors down, then paused and nodded over her shoulder. The room was dimly lit by the greenish-blue glow of a whole wall of monitors. Tony was standing in front of them, studying a barrage of text and images, moving far too quickly for Steve to process.

Steve walked to Tony's side, and waited for him to acknowledge his presence.

Tony let him wait through a good two minutes of silence. Then he straightened, and the text on the displays slowed to a crawl, before going blank. "Lots of data. Still not sure about the strategic value, but Zola did leave us dozens of hours of footage of your friend."

Steve stared at him. For a moment he thought he saw sympathy in the suit's unchanging face.

"You probably don't want to watch it. I can tell you the highlights."

Steve stood. "I want to see."

"I get why you think so, I do..." Tony sighed. "We've all been through some bad stuff, but what they did to your friend, it's—it's inhuman. You don't want to—"

"I _need_ to see."

Tony nodded and grabbed a little ball from the desk. "Remote control for this." He nodded at the displays. "Push down on the top to start and stop, twist right to fast forward, left to reverse."

Steve took the little ball and held it in his palm.

"For what it's worth," Tony said, "I'm sorry." And then he left the room.

Steve recognized the image on the screen. Bucky and his mangled arm.

His eyes were closed.

The room was grey, the men wore grey.

Surgery after surgery. The arm being attached, repaired, upgraded.

The room was grey, the men wore white.

Implants after implants. Tests after tests.

His eyes were open.

_"Who are you?"_

_"I'm—I don't know."_

The room was green, the men wore blue.

_"Mission report."_

_"Target eliminated. No collateral damage."_

His eyes were hollow.

_"Wipe him."_

The room was green, the men wore blue.

_"Mission report._

_"Target eliminated. Extensive collateral damage."_

His eyes were bloodshot.

_"Wipe him."_

_"Put him on ice."_

The room was glass, the doctor was a machine.

"I remember you," Bucky said. "You died."

Zola scoffed. "I may have shed my body decades ago, but that does not make me less of a man, it makes me greater. I am not just your superior, I am your god, now. You understand?"

Bucky shook his head, and muttered an answer too quiet to hear.

"What was that?" Zola asked. On the edges of his large robotic torso, small round holes opened, from which came slender red, metallic tendrils curling out into the air like vines. They latched onto Bucky's metal arm, twisted it around and opened a compartment by his wrist, then slid inside, completing a circuit.

"My god died a long time ago."

"Then you have need of another." Twin beams of light came from Zola's shoulder, locking onto Bucky's eyes.

"No." Bucky gritted his teeth. The tendrils were hurting him, whatever they were doing.

A leer spread across Zola's digital face, pixel by pixel. "Your captain..." he said, as he pulled the image from Bucky's mind: _Steve smiling—a memory from when they'd been younger—choppy with static but familiar enough that Steve remembered along with him—the smell of the ocean, the taste of hot dogs and popcorn, the sand between his toes. The image changed, became clearer, perfectly crisp: Steve in his uniform, fighting alongside the commandos._

"My dear, deluded Sergeant. He was no god. Just a poor attempt at one. Science made him strong, but he was still human, still flawed."

"No." A drop of sweat rolled down Bucky's cheek, he clenched his teeth and glared up at Zola, eyes red-rimmed and furious. The image on Zola's monitor shifted again. _Steve sketching on their old ratty couch, in the light of his living room's window._ "My god was small. He was perfect."

Zola made a disgusted noise and the image vanished, replaced again by his face. "Your faith was misplaced." Zola brought his hands in closer and twin arcs of lighting came out of his palms as he brought them to Bucky's temples. A thin, third arm unfolded from his torso to shove a rubber bit into Bucky's mouth. "And you shall have no other gods before me."

Though his hands trembled, and his body shook violently, Bucky didn't scream. Not once.

#

Steve sat, completely still, in front of the darkened monitor, for minutes, hours. He felt drained—emptied out in a way he hadn't been since three days after his mother's death, when he'd finally stopped weeping. He wished he could weep now. But his eyes were dry; his jaw ached from clenching his teeth. Beyond those two sensations, there was nothing—he was adrift, unmoored and shorted out, white noise cushioning his brain from what it had seen.

He stood and walked out of the room, down the hall— _left foot, right foot, left, right._

Bruce had dimmed the lights when he'd gone, but other than that, the med-lab was exactly as Steve had left it. And Bucky hadn't moved an inch—still in the exact same position on the cot, eyes closed, IV bag still feeding him sugar water.

Steve dragged the chair closer, sat so he could watch the rise and fall of Bucky's chest.

The cot was oversized, built that way to fit Bruce's other shape. Bucky looked small lying alone in its center.

As silently as he could, Steve moved the chair out of the way, and climbed onto the cot next to Bucky. Careful to avoid the IV tube, Steve settled in, head pressed against Bucky's hair, arm draped across his chest. He waited, listened for the sounds of Bucky's heartbeat, felt the rise and fall of his chest, and when he was sure both were steady, let his eyes drift shut.

## 


	2. Chapter 2

"... when he wakes up? After everything that happened..."

"He's strong, he'll survive."

"He's been through a hell of a lot," Steve said.

It was Steve.

Bucky tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. Couldn't move a muscle, even though he could hear them.

"So have you. You both logged over a century in ice." Another, less familiar voice. Sometimes green, sometimes not.

"Put him on ice."

"Not just the ice...everything else. What they did to him—"

"What they put him through—"

"Mission report."

"Target eliminated. No witnesses, no collateral damage. No bullets."

"Good work, soldier. Clean him up."

"His brain's rebuilding. He might not be like you remember."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hard to tell. Every brain is different. And this isn't exactly a common experience. Never even heard of anybody else who went through this much trauma without any physical damage to the brain itself. But given the readout spikes in the occipital and temporal lobe...probably visual or auditory hallucinations. Maybe both."

"Mission report."

"Soldier, you went AWOL. Where did you go?"

"I asked you a question, soldier."

"Home," Bucky forced his eyes open. "I need to go...home."

"Bucky?" Steve's face floated into focus above him. "Hey, you're awake."

"Steve..." Bucky tried to sit up, but pain lanced through him, blinding him for a fraction of a section.

"Take it easy," Steve pushed gently against Bucky's chest until he laid back on the cot.

Bright lights blinked steadily above him, attached to a transparent arc of plastic or glass. "Where are we?" The room was brightly lit, the walls were grey stone.

_The drones were closing in on them, Steve swung his shield through one of them, slicing into its side, exposing the red sparking metallic veins beneath. A giant flash of light and sound and they all fell._

"Zola?"

"We got away. We're underground." Steve's lips quirked. "Somewhere near the old 191st street IRT stop, believe it or not."

"Get out of town." Bucky scanned the room and found the other voice he'd heard—a man standing on his left—mussed hair, glasses and a stance that said: tread carefully. "Bruce Banner," he said with a half-wave.

"You a doctor?"

"Used to be," he said with a wry smile.

"What's the diagnosis?" Bucky pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing at the throbbing in his head. Steve raised a disapproving eyebrow but didn't try to stop him.

"Well..." Bruce pointed at the display suspended above Bucky. "...your former captors rigged you with a bunch of implants meant to sedate or possibly kill you. They all went off."

"Oh." That explained why he felt like he'd been run over by a fleet of trucks.

"Good news is all the chemical ones were single use. So it can't happen again." He stepped closer, fiddled with the controls on the clear plastic arc.

"This can't happen again."

"It won't."

"Make sure of it. Take everything out. Everything he doesn't need to breathe, piss or, fight."

"But sir—"

Hands pushed him back, held him down while metal closed around his head.

"Buck?" Steve was worried. Afraid.

"You're gonna want to let go of my arm," Bruce said. His voice was steady, but his eyes were dilated. Bucky blinked to clear the other voices from this head and saw his metal fingers clamped tightly around Bruce's wrist.

"Sorry," Bucky said, forcing his fingers open.

"No worries," Bruce said. His pleasantness sounded convincing on the surface, but it was hollow.

"You okay?" Steve asked, brow furrowed. "Did you...did you see something?"

The words got stuck in Bucky's throat, but he didn't need them. He never needed words with Steve.

"Your mind is healing," Bruce said. "It'll take a while for everything to uh...to settle."

"Zola did this to me," Bucky said. "Gave it all back. As punishment."

Steve's jaw clicked. A tell he'd had since he was five foot nothing and ninety pounds wet. He was angry. "Doesn't matter why he did it, you've got your freedom now. Got your mind back."

"You sure about that?"

Brow furrowed, Steve looked down to the floor before meeting Bucky's eyes again.

Before he could think better of it, and before Steve could say something to change his mind, Bucky blurted, "Lock me up."

"What?" Steve asked, stunned.

"If I can't tell reality from what's in my head, I could hurt somebody." He forced himself to hold Steve's gaze. "I could hurt you."

"You're right," Bruce said.

"Hold on—" Steve took a step towards Bruce.

Bruce held up his hands, placating, "And normally, I'd agree with you. But I don't think that's necessary."

Bucky stared at Bruce, incredulous. "I just grabbed you, without meaning to."

"Yeah," Bruce cocked an eyebrow. "And if you'd really tried to hurt me, you'd be plastered against the other side of the room with your head halfway through the wall."

"Was that a threat?" Steve asked, voice low.

"Statement of fact. Point is, the group we've got here is pretty hard to hurt." Bruce shrugged. "And we've all had bad days. Some of us more than others." He turned his back on them, cleared his throat. "Also, you spent decades locked up. There's no way you should go into confinement again, even voluntary, unless the situation becomes totally unmanageable."

Bucky shook his head, ready to argue the point, but Steve was by his side again, threading their fingers together and suddenly the lab felt like the safest place in the world to be.

"Cap," said a voice from the door—a woman with her hair in a ponytail, wearing a loose red, white and blue costume. It made Bucky think of Steve in the old film studio where they'd had him do propaganda bits. "We could really use your input down the hall. Whenever you're ready. We got a ton of data from Zola. Need to figure out our next best strike point."

Steve's fingers tightened their grip slightly around Bucky's. "In a bit, Roberta."

Roberta tilted her head to the side until she made eye-contact with Bucky. Her face softened. "Sure, whenever you're ready." She gave them a nod and headed on down the hall.

"Steve." Bucky put his other, heavier hand on top of Steve's to pull his attention back down. "Go see what they need."

"They can wait," Steve said. "They waited until now, they can give us a few more damn minutes to—"

"No, no they can't. What's going on here, it's bad. You're right, they waited a damn long time, and now you're here. They need you. It's okay, just go. I'll stay here, rest some more."

Steve gave him another look. _You sure?_

_Go on, doofus I'll be fine._

"I'll be right back, I promise. Five minutes, tops. If anything— if you need me—"

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky said, trying to rein in the intensity of Steve's gaze.

"We'll call for you," Bruce said.

Steve squeezed Bucky's hand once more, comfort and worry in one, then turned and left.

"He's a good man," Bruce said after Steve was out of earshot.

"He's the best."

Bruce adjusted something on the monitor to Bucky's right, swapped out the bag of fluids tethered to his IV line, and then took off his glasses, tucking them in his front shirt pocket. "Try to get some more sleep."

"Thanks," Bucky said. He watched Bruce work for a few more minutes, until his eyes began to drift shut. The soft beeps of his heart monitor slowed and exhaustion started to pull him under.

_"No, don't!"_

Bucky's eyes flew open.

Bruce was standing by his desk in the back of the room, focused on the computer in front of him.

 _"Don't do this,"_ the voice said, from the other side of the room, by the door. A man in a dress shirt and slacks stumbled in, walking backwards, arms raised and shaking with terror. _"Don't do this. Please! Whatever they're paying you, I'll double it!"_

Bucky pushed himself up on his elbows. The stranger clearly thought he was being threatened, and whoever was threatening him, was just outside.

"Need something?" Bruce asked. He didn't even glance towards the door.

The shaking man staggered further into the room and clutched at his heart, his eyes going wide, thick beads of sweat rolling down his brow. Red blossomed from his chest, spreading out wide across his crisp white shirt. He fell to his knees, then slumped to the floor, dead.

"Barnes, you okay?" Bruce asked. He was looking at Bucky; took no notice of the dead man bleeding out on the med-lab floor.

Bucky nodded, clenching his eyes shut. When he opened them again, the man on the floor was gone and Bruce was only two feet away. "What did you see?"

"I—I'm not sure."

"Everything okay?" Steve asked, as he came back into the room. His eyes flicked from Bucky to Bruce and back again.

"Peachy." Bucky gave Bruce a steady look.

But Bruce wasn't having any of it. "The hallucinations are pretty much a given, considering what you've been through. I could give you something that'd help, but considering everything else you've got in your system right now I'd call that plan C."

"What's A and B?"

"Wait it out. Wait it out some more." Bruce shrugged and headed back to his desk.

"Buck?" Steve's raised eyebrow added more insistence to the question.

"I'll be fine. Just—need to get my head on straight."

"You've got a hundred and seventy-year old crick-in-the-neck to work out," Bruce said. "It'll take time. Don't be too hard on yourself."

Steve gave the doc a half-smile before clasping Bucky's hand.

"Any chance at a change in scenery?" Bucky asked propping himself up on his elbows.

"Let me give you the nickel tour," Steve said, holding out his arm.

Bucky glared at him and stood on his own two legs, bare feet sticking out from dust-caked black pants. He wobbled a bit before grudgingly accepting Steve's arm.

"He falls down, you bring him right back," Bruce said.

"I won't let him fall." Steve slid his other arm around Bucky's waist and steered them both towards the door.

"Maybe you can find him a shirt, too," Bruce added.

The room itself wobbled along with Bucky's knees before his equilibrium settled. It felt, he thought, a lot like being extremely hung-over, distant though those memories were. Steve shifted his weight and Bucky leaned against him a bit more as they turned left down the hall. Steve's shirt was soft against Bucky's bare skin.

The hallway flickered, and for a moment, instead of grey walls, he was walking between two uneven brick buildings bracketing a cobblestone alley.

_"Come on Buck, one leg in front of the other. Can't carry you all the way home you know."_

_"Can't carry me half a block, string bean."_

_"Shut up and walk."_  
  
"Buck?" Steve was looking down at him. The angle was all wrong, used to be the other way around.

Bucky rubbed his knuckles against his temple. "Yeah?"

"You want to go back to the med-lab?"

"Hell no."

"Want to go to my room?"

"You got your own room here?"

"Yeah, it's swell—got a bed and everything."

"With a pillow?"

"With two pillows."

"Fancy."

Steve stopped by a door on their left and turned the knob, opening the door with his hip. The inside of the room was wanly lit, with walls made of the same drab grey stone as the rest of the place. Bucky scanned the room. "Where's the bed?"

"Right there," Steve nodded with his chin and walked them into the room.

"That's a couch."

"Pulls out into a bed."

"You fold it back up into a couch every day?"

"I've only been here three days."

"Question stands."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I want to have a place for guests to sit." Steve moved over to a small trunk and popped open the lid.

"Guests? Who?"

"All kinds of people." Steve tossed a white t-shirt in Bucky's direction.

"Pff." The shirt fit, just a little snug in the shoulders. "I take a nap for a few days and you forget all about me." Bucky plopped down on the couch, wincing as pain lanced behind his eyes. "Son of a—"

Steve was on him instantly, brushing Bucky's hair out of the way to press the back of his hand against his forehead.

"I'm fine," he said batting Steve's hand away. "Just uh—you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure. Be right back." Steve darted out into the hall.

Bucky let his eyes fall shut, and the room tilted violently around him, even when he tried to steady himself, pressing his fingers against the couch cushions until he could feel springs.

 _Thwack. Thwack._ A familiar sound from just outside the door—the rhythmic thump of gloved hands on leather. Somebody boxing. He opened his eyes again and stood. Maybe walking would do his circulation some good. Following the sound, he stepped out into the hall; the door to the gym was open. Bucky moved closer, one step at a time, until he could see inside the room. A woman—older than him, with streaks of silver in her red hair. She moved with precision, a tempered strength behind each blow; the bag rattled on its chains as she alternated, jab, jab, punch, hook. She brought her knee crashing into the side of the bag, followed up with a spin kick...and hesitated when she saw him. It wasn't long, a barely imperceptible pause, but it was enough.

Drawn closer, Bucky moved up to the door frame and waited. She stepped away from the bag towards him—her breathing steady but shallow from the exertion.

_Ты знаешь мое имя?_

"I'm Natasha, nice to meet you."

"I'm..." _американский, Soldat, Bucky, Buck, Sergeant Barnes, James Buchanan._ "James."

"Hi James," she said and crossed her arms across her chest. She moved in a familiar way, like someone who knew their body, knew exactly what it was capable of. "How you feeling?"

"Been better," he admitted, "but—"

There were others in the room. He hadn't noticed them before—a young girl, ten years old at most, and a soldier in uniform—Russian uniform. He recognized them, felt something bitter at the back of his throat, a reflexive reaction, fingers curling into fists.

Natasha looked over her shoulder, following his gaze, then turned right back to Bucky. "Bruce says Hydra dosed you up pretty good. Sure you shouldn't be in the med-lab?"

Bucky took a step back, clenched his eyes shut angrily as he told himself the only one in the room was Natasha, but when he looked again, the soldier was still there, the girl was still there. _"Ты знаешь мое имя?"_ she asked, reaching for the soldier's holster. In one smooth motion, she drew the gun and leveled the barrel at Bucky. _"предатель."_

His fingers, his limbs shook as he fought the impulse to defend himself with every flimsy ounce of willpower he had.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, grabbing him by the shoulder.

The girl was gone, the soldier was gone, and Natasha's expression was perfectly blank. Bucky turned to Steve, trying to not look as shaken as he felt.

"You okay?" Steve asked, the thin plastic of the water bottle he'd brought crackling in his hand.

"Been better," Bucky repeated. He moved to the door, mumbling, "nice to meet you," to Natasha without looking her in the eyes again. He knew her. And she knew him.

#

"Want more?" Steve asked after Bucky drained the last of the water.

Bucky shook his head and leaned back against the couch, letting his eyes wander up to the ceiling. "This used to be an IRT station?"

"Weird, right?" Steve shrugged. "Apparently it's been a base for resistance fighters for a few decades now."

"Resistance?" Bucky cracked a bitter smile. "Other people fighting against Zola?"

"There's always some, from what Tony showed me. Just...they don't usually last very long."

"The group here seems pretty tough." He thought about it for a minute. "The woman with the ponytail—Roberta—she threw a tank over our heads, right?"

Steve laughed. "Yup."

"Flying guy with a hammer?"

"Thor."

"Thor?"

"Yup."

"As in, God of Thunder, Odin, Valhalla, all that?"

"Yup. And the woman outside with a killer right hook goes by Black Widow."

 _Черная вдова, as deadly as you,_ a voice echoed in Bucky's head. _A gun in his hand. Soldiers; girls who killed with soulless efficiency._ He pushed against his temples, pressed himself instinctively closer against Steve, focused on that body-heat, solid and real beside him. Steve's fingers squeezed down on his thigh, gentle and reassuring.

"And Bruce..." Bucky said, forcing himself back to the present. "Bruce turns huge and green."

"Yup. And Tony used to go by Iron Man, back when he was flesh and blood," Steve said, "They call themselves the _Avengers_ ,"

Bucky scoffed, making it as genuine as he could. "What kind of crazy future did we wake up in, Steve?"

"Welcome to twenty one eleven." Steve's expression faltered. The truth of that statement must've hit him as hard as it did Bucky.

"Well, shit."

They sat in silence for a solid minute, until the intercom box on the wall by the door crackled and Tony said, "Cap, could you and your friend come down to the command room at your earliest convenience please?"

#

"Stark?" Bucky asked, shaking the robot's hand. "As in Howard?"

"As in Tony," the robot said, annoyed. "Steve give you the tour?"

"Yeah—"

"We didn't get far," Steve added, his attention was on a strip of text and pictures floating in midair, dates and photographs and bright dots.

"What's that?" Bucky asked.

"Timeline," Tony said. "Tracks key events that led to Zola ruining...well everything." He pointed to the back of the room. "Something else I want you to take a look at. Something we stole from his base."

Uneasiness quelled in Bucky's gut. "You have a piece of his tech, here?"

Tony raised a finger. "No worries, it's not networked. We're one hundred and ten percent sure of that." He headed towards a glass cylinder in the back. Steve gave Bucky an unsure look before following.

The cylinder wasn't glass, as he'd first thought. It was some kind of projected force field, and behind it, suspended in the center, was a small silver disc—a tiny, flying-saucer-looking thing.

Steve peered at the disc, eyes narrowed.

The disc was inert, innocuous, but it set Bucky's teeth on edge nonetheless; a sense of dreadful familiarity coiled in his gut—he'd seen these things before, seen them hovering in the air after...after what, he couldn't remember. He took a tentative step closer and saw a wet line of red shimmering around the circumference of the metal—a single drop of blood oozed out the seam of the disc and turned into a wisp-like tendril when it hit the air, thin as spider-webs. Unnaturally alive.

But again, nobody noticed. It was all in his head. Inside of _him_ , just like the constant itching under his skin, those implants—Zola's circuitry grafted to his muscle and bone, hooked directly into his nervous system. He hadn't escaped Zola, Zola was still inside of him, under his skin—dormant but waiting—and now they'd brought his tech here.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"Not sure," Tony said. "And believe me, I don't say that often. We've tried just about every trick we can think of, but whatever Zola built this out of, it's stronger than anything we know how to cut through." Tony sighed. "And we can't figure out what triggers it to open."

"How do you know it even opens?" Bucky asked. "What if it's a—a recording device, or a fancy bug? What if he's listening to us right now?" His voice got louder, fists curling. Steve's hand on his shoulder, meant as a comfort, nearly made him jump.

"Because it's not," Tony said. "We've run it through every test we can think of. And even if it was—behind that disruptor field, it can't pick up a damn thing."

"What we do know," Bruce said, entering the room, "...is that if you set these discs in range of a drone, they're picked up—the drones carry whatever's inside back to Zola. That's something we can use. " He crossed his arms across his chest. "We just need to crack it open first."

"What makes you think _we_ can help?" Steve said.

Tony's expressionless faceplate looked at Steve, then turned to Bucky. "Because you two have had more interaction with Arnim Zola than anyone we know, and beyond that, you knew him before he digitized himself. So, if anybody can figure out how to crack this thing, it's you two."

"I've seen them before," Bucky said carefully, "...but I can't remember what they are. Or how they work."

"It's okay," Steve said, patting him on the shoulder. "Maybe it'll come back to you later."

"What I do remember," Bucky continued, as his memories slotted into place "...is that everything Zola uses is networked, and he can infect anything with an operating system." He looked into the bilious lights of Tony's eyes. "How come you're not his?"

Tony scoffed. "Because I don't have an operating system, I have a brain."

"No you don't," Bucky said.

Bruce scoffed, "I've told him that several times."

"No, I mean I remember you—shooting you. The orders were specific. Four bullets through the brain. They didn't want to take any chances."

Tony took a step back, straightened. "You remember that, huh?"

"2028," Bucky looked at the golden armor, the flickers of blue light from the floating text of the timeline reflecting off the scuffs and scrapes on the helmet. _High priority target. All means authorized._ He'd hit him thirteen times with adamantium encased armor-piercing explosive rounds. "Stark, Anthony. Target eliminated. I confirmed the kill. Four rounds through the brain."

Tony went completely still, the way only machines could. "Good thing I knew you were coming." He cocked his head, "You know that's zero for two. And here I thought you were the stuff of legends."

"Two," Bucky repeated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Black Widow shift her weight. A tiny gesture, but it was enough. "Natalia," he said, as another memory surfaced. Bullet in the chamber. "Odessa." A target she was protecting. He shot through her to hit his mark. She survived. _Odessa._. The pressure in his brain grew, spikes of pain making it hard to see. _Odessa._

_"Report, soldier."_

_"Target eliminated."_

_"Collateral damage?" The room was empty, the questions came from the wall._

_"His escort."_

_"Wounded or killed?"_

_"Perforated small intestine."_

_"Answer the question, soldier."_

_He looked directly at the small camera mounted above the door. "Killed."_

_"Are you sure? Did you confirm?"_

_"Internal organs damaged, no backup. She bled out."_

_The wall went silent._

_He walked to the door but it didn't open._

_"Negative, soldier."_

_He looked up at the camera, repeated the answer. "She bled out."_

_"Sir, we have a failure to comply."_

_The vent above him spewed a cloud of sickly smelling white smoke._

The pounding behind his eyes lessened and he forced his eyes open again. Natalia—the Black Widow— _Natasha_ was watching him. "You missed," she said.

"I don't miss. You weren't my target."

She nodded. A faint, humorless smile curled the edges of her mouth. "Gave me a wicked scar though."

"I'm...sorry."

She walked closer, looked up at him. Aged, changed, grown older, though not nearly as much as an ordinary human would have.

"That was 2009..." _2033, Target: Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Bullet to the heart._. "2033, Dresden. That time, you _were_ my target. I watched you die."

She gave him a steady look. "You did. But death's not always the end, is it?" Crossing her arms across her chest, she sighed. "Infinity formula. Apparently Tony had a dose of it stashed in his suit for emergencies.

Tony shifted behind them. "There wasn't enough time for a bio-digital transfer. Plus I didn't have the right kind of gear anymore."

"I didn't want this," Natasha said looking down at herself. "I mean honestly, I'm glad he didn't give it to me sooner. At least I look like I've been on the globe for a few spins."

"I would've never forgiven myself if I hadn't tried it on you," Tony said, "Plus, you were too important to the cause." He turned back to the timeline, entering data—corrections, Bucky realized with a sinking feeling, as he saw the dates Tony was focusing on. 2033 had a red star assigned to it. In small letters beneath the star were the words _Winter Soldier._

There were dozens of red stars on the timeline, a long serpentine constellation stretching from one end of the timeline to the other.

"That's me. That star, it's..." Bucky looked down at his left shoulder, the faded red star underneath the stylized Z. Zola hadn't bothered to remove the old symbol, just stamped his own brand on top. "All of those dates....they're all kills right? Key people taken out of the picture by the Winter Soldier. By _me_."

Nobody answered, but they didn't have to. He could see the answer in their faces...even Steve's. Steve knew and Christ, how long had he known? "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You had enough to deal with," Tony said instantly.

"How can you say that? I tried to _kill_ you," Bucky said, and another blood-stained date clicked into place. "1991, I killed your parents."

Tony went statue still beside him. The light in his eyes darkened for a moment and then leveled out again. "The car accident was Hydra's doing," Tony said.

"I took out the tires."

"You were a weapon." Tony curled and flexed his fingers, soft clicks of metal against metal. "Believe me, I know all about what happens when weapons fall into the wrong hands."

"I—"

"You didn't pull the trigger, you were the gun. And we all know better than to blame the gun."

"That's what I've been seeing, those—those ghosts, those people, pleading—dying. It's my past." Bucky pointed at the timeline, hand quivering. "I knew they meant something, but I-I didn't—"

"We didn't know how much you remembered," Bruce said. "My assumption was that your brain would handle those memories in whatever way it needed to ensure your survival."

"My survival?" Bucky scoffed. The whole notion was ludicrous. "After what I've done? You should put me down!"

"Buck," Steve said gently, eyes shining. "It's not your fault."

He couldn't bear the undeserved forgiveness Steve was offering, so he looked away—to Natasha, to Tony, to Bruce. "When you got me away from Zola...did you know who I was?"

"We knew." Tony said.

Beside him, Steve inhaled sharply. Maybe this was news to him, too. Bucky's eyes burned, fury and confusion making it hard to see. "You knew, and you freed me anyway."

"Not anyway. Because." Tony pushed a button on the timeline, and the display flickered out of existence.

Steve swallowed, took a measured step closer. "We know what Hydra did to you. What they forced you to do. Bucky, none of this was your fault."

"I remember it. All of it." Bucky shook his head. "It's not all in order, and some of it...I can't..." A woman stood in front of him, blood still gushing from her throat, turning her diamond necklace to rubies. Her wispy fingers brushed against Bucky's cheek as he stumbled back, trying to get away. "I can't get it out of my head. They used to take it out."

"Buck, I'm sorry," Steve took a cautious step closer, hand extended like he was trying to tame a jittery horse. He stepped right through the living corpse on the floor—an old man clutching a singed folder to his chest like it was more important than his life had been.

It took all of Bucky's willpower to look away from the ghosts and focus on Steve. "Yeah, so am I."

"Bucky," Steve's voice was as gentle as his hand. He cupped Bucky's shoulder, eyes heavy with worry. Behind Steve was a shadow of a man with a black muzzle where his face should be. The shadow walked up behind Steve, wrapped it's gleaming sliver arm loosely around his throat. Steve didn't so much as twitch. "Buck, please, let's just go somewhere and—"

Bucky jerked out of Steve's hold. "No—no I—." And then he ran.

#

They didn't try to stop him. He made it all the way to the surface, only had to break through two locking mechanisms to get out. The third door opened on its own at his approach. They were letting him go. Good. Maybe they'd finally come to their senses and realized he was endangering them all by staying. He had to go, to keep them safe.

Steve would be upset, but he'd get over it. He'd be fine, he always was.

Even during the war, in the midst of horrors they could've never imagined, Steve kept his cool, kept his hope, kept Bucky from drowning with his life-raft smiles, his stupid jokes. Even after Krausberg, after Zola, they had a rhythm, though it was never quite what it used to be. Bucky tried of course, he remembered some of the jokes, used the same words, and Steve laughed at them, but they were just going through the motions—a weary retread of a road they no longer belonged on.

But at least then they'd been side by side, together in spirit and heart even when they were apart. He always knew where Steve was, felt threats to Steve before he could even process them fully, his aim sure and true, because he knew what his role was, knew why he'd made it out of that Hydra hell-hole, knew that it was his job to keep Steve safe, to keep him leading the Commandos through that snowy purgatory.

But now...now he didn't deserve to be by Steve's side anymore. Steve knew what Bucky had done, but he didn't understand it, how could he? If he truly did, then he'd know there was no coming back from it—he'd know that there was only one way out.

Bucky's head pounded and he closed his eyes until the whispers in his ears became loud enough to hear.

_"He has to wake up."_

_Steve was close. He was right there, but Bucky couldn't move, couldn't open his eyes, wasn't even sure if he was alive. He could hear though, and he could understand._

_"He will."_

_"I can't do this without him."_

The thoughts echoed in Bucky's head—a memory, maybe. Or just wishful thinking.

Beneath his boots, the ground became rockier as he moved away from the Avengers' hidden base and up the hill. Barren trees, stripped of leaves, with flaking bark flanked him on either side—white as birch, but oak and chestnut. He knew the shape, but the coloring was all wrong. He swiped his finger across one of the trunks as he passed and it came away covered in ash. The whole hill had burned; the soil was still speckled with grey. As the path sloped up, the trees thinned then petered out completely along the edge. From here he could see the streets below. There were more buildings than he remembered—a lot more, but no people. He stood and watched, waited for movement, some sign of life, a car, a bike or anything, but there was nothing—like all life had fled. No people, no movement at all—not even a passing pigeon. It occurred to him then that he hadn't seen or heard a single animal in his mad dash to get away.

He kept his steps slow and silent, ears perked for sounds of rustling leaves, but still didn't see any of the usual forest critters. It was far too warm for them to be hibernating.

The path curved around to the other side of the hill, leading him through a long, graffitied tunnel. Cracked lighting panels were mounted inside, mostly dead but a few still flickered on and off giving Bucky glimpses of the walls: a chipped, faded checkerboard pattern peeked through from beneath decades of new additions—'Shut it Down,' scrawled in jagged letters over and over, a large A in a circle that had been painted over with a jagged red Z. Bucky's right hand went reflexively to his metal shoulder, tracing the Z there.

Stick figures in combat were painted on the other side, a whole pile of them, with Xs for eyes, on the ground. They moved when he passed them, scrawled bodies filling into human shapes—eyes open, bleeding wounds, faces he recognized but couldn't name. All of them dead by his hand, all of them reaching for him, clawing at his arms and legs as he passed. He broke into a run, dodging their grasp.

The tunnel opened onto a forest of dense pine trees; browned needles carpeted the ground, muting the air. Bucky came to a stop, lungs heaving. He'd heard something, seen a flash of light behind the trees—weapons fire maybe. Someone was nearby. Either that or a ghost had followed him from the tunnel.

Muscles tensed, he listened until he heard the sound again—a muffled shout, someone trying to call for help with a hand clamped over their mouth. He knew exactly what that sounded like; remembered the scrape of teeth against his palm. Another ghost, maybe, except it didn't feel like one—didn't feel directed at him.

It was easy to mask his own steps in the wood, and within seconds, he'd followed the direction of the noise to a small clearing with a tent, an extinguished campfire, three of Zola's drones and three humans: two corpses, one still alive, Bucky noted as he saw the blank eyes of the fallen man and woman.

The surviving woman was being held by one of the drones, who was wearing a human mask—a child's face—disturbingly out of place with the rest of its metal body. "Our Zola is merciful. Renounce what you've done and he will forgive you," the drone said, its voice low and soothing. Meant to be comforting. It lowered its hand, uncovering her mouth, then let her go.

She was shaking, eyes glassy and wild with fury. She took two steps away, then turned, legs buckling once until she caught herself and steadied. "I don't want or need his forgiveness."

"Citizen, do not resist us. Our Zola will not abide his people living out here like animals."

"My name is Eliza, I'm not _his_ anything."

"He only wishes to take care of you. Make sure you have all you need."

Her fingers clenched. "You just killed all that I need." She walked closer to the drone, close enough to touch. And then spit in its face. "Shut it down."

It was a protest—the same words that had been scrawled on the walls of the tunnel. Bucky had heard words spoken in that tone, in that final moment of life, often enough to know what they meant. The drone's arm cannon began to glow. Bucky leapt forward, throwing himself between the woman and the drone and grabbed hold of her waist, pulling her out of the way just before the drone fired.

With as much torque as he could muster, given the angle, he threw the woman further out into the clearing. She hit the ground with a thump and an _"oof"_ , but she was alive.

The other two drones turned on him, cannons charged.

He looked up at the one with the face and grinned. "Think he'll forgive me?"

The drones hovered, motionless, and Bucky took his chance, slamming his fist up at the drone's jaw. But it was quick, and dodged by a hair. He threw more blows, pushing himself to go faster and faster, but the drones were faster still. He didn't land a single blow. His next punch was blocked, fist stopped cold by the drone's hand.

Above them, two familiar shapes skimmed the trees as they came in for a landing.

"We got you covered," Roberta said.

Bucky peered over his shoulder, just long enough to see her scoop up the survivor and head back into the air.

"How fares the battle?" Thor asked, from his right.

"They're faster than me," Bucky said, pushing back against the drone across from him to give himself some distance.

"They are fast," Thor agreed as he twirled his hammer in his grip. "But I have yet to see them dodge this." He brought the hammer straight out and sent an arc of lightning hurtling towards the drones. It struck all three—shaking them violently, red alarm lights ablaze on their torsos; then they went perfectly still. "We need to leave now, before more come to investigate the continued presence of organic life." Thor stuck his hand out to Bucky who didn't move a muscle. He followed Bucky's gaze, looking down at the dead man and woman. "We will bury them. Tony is on his way. Their sensors can't detect him, and he can defend himself quite adequately against a scouting group."

"I remember," Bucky said, gripping Thor's hand. Thor pulled him in closer, raised his hammer high and leapt upwards.

The air whipped through Bucky's hair as they flew straight up. His eyes began to water, and he wondered, just for a second, how exactly a hammer could lift up two fully grown men.

Thor brought them to the very top of the hill—a lopsided, flattened peak with a wide overhang. A familiar one, though it took Bucky a minute to recognize his surroundings. A tower—an old, crumbling thing that looked like it had stood for centuries. It was a castle, flown in piece by piece from Europe, a castle turned museum turned ruin. He knew this place. Had known it before. He'd been here with Steve.

"The Cloisters," Bucky said. "We had a picnic up here once. Ants damn near everywhere, Steve nearly ate one..."

Thor stepped closer to the edge and folded his arms across his chest. "Are you injured?"

"No," Bucky said. "Thanks to you."

"Untrue." Thor frowned. "The drones were not attacking you."

"You noticed that too, huh?"

"Aye." Thor looked at him. "This means Zola has commanded you not be harmed."

"Not sure why, I told that chrome-dome off plenty. I don't want anything to do with him."

Thor's eyes narrowed for a split second, then softened. "I do not believe you are deceiving us."

"Good, 'cause I ain't." Bucky walked ahead. The sky was streaked purplish pink and as they neared the edge of the cliff-side, he could see the sun lying fat and red on the horizon. Far beneath them—beyond the park grounds, were empty streets dotted with buildings—apartment buildings just as hollow and charred as the forest's trees. Bucky listened to Thor's soft footsteps, waited until he was right by his side. "How did he do it?"

"Hm." Thor spun his hammer by its grip, considering. "At first through deception, then oppression and brute force."

"How many?"

"This planet's population is one tenth of what it was twenty years ago."

Bucky let his head hang. The war they'd died fighting had never ended, only escalated. Hydra had won. "Did Hydra make Zola what he is?"

"They needed his intellect. And he waited for them to execute his designs, gave them the illusion of control. But once they decided they no longer needed his services, and attempted to delete him, he fought back. Hydra fell to Zola in a matter of days. He had already infected all of their databases, all of their access points." Thor's brow furrowed, and in the setting sun, his armor looked tarnished and worn. "In mere hours he had seized control of every automated system in every major city."

"And outside of the cities?"

"He had all bridges destroyed, all paths of access blocked. His drones guard all city limits. Outside of the regions he controls, he cuts off power, deadens all communications signals but his own, reroutes water supplies—"

"So they live in the cities because they have no other choice."

"It's more than that. The younger generations believe he is their savior. Because all the information they have access to—their entire shared library of knowledge, has been edited by him."

The true horror of Zola's utopia unfolded in Bucky's mind, leaving him speechless. He kept his eyes on the streets below, searching for any movement—any sign of life, even a pigeon. But there was nothing.

"But there is still hope. There is always hope," Thor said, focused on the water of the Hudson River below. He sat, let his legs hang over the edge. There'd been a wall here once, but large chunks of it had crumbled away, leaving the edges battle-charred and red-limned by the setting sun below.

Bucky sat down next to him, remembering Coney Island and the way the ocean at sunset became one big orange mirror. On his periphery he saw movement, a shimmer in the air that solidified and took the shape of a man in uniform—KGB, a general.

Cracking his knuckles, Bucky ignored the general, whose rifle was aimed right at them. He knew the general would never get a chance to take the shot—felt his fingers twitch as the memory of his own trigger-pull rippled through him.

"Ghosts haunt us, not because we're to blame, but because we blame ourselves," Thor said, turning the hammer idly in his grip.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do.." Bucky turned to Thor, noted the general behind him—rifle still held at the ready, frozen at the moment of his death, the single bullet-hole in his forehead a perfect, dark circle. "But you're wrong. Hydra might have been pulling the strings, but I remember getting away before Zola took over. More than once. I had a choice, at least some of the time." His brow furrowed as he pushed at those murky parts of his brain where his memories were still fractured. The images and sounds there were scrambled and broken—a kaleidoscope of his wretched past.

Thor's eyes narrowed. "You escaped, and they tracked you down again and again, that does not make this your fault. That means you were trying to get away. You did not choose what they made you do, and every time your mind was close to whole, you tried to end their hold on you. That is not proof of guilt, that is proof of your spirit—of your innocence."

Bucky's laugh was bitter and wet. "Innocence? Not me, buddy." He watched the general fade into nothingness as a cluster of dried leaves blew across the spot of ground where he'd been. "Not me."

"You judge yourself harshly."

Howard and Maria Stark stood in the distance further down the cliff-side, still burning, their smoke rising up into the air. "The ghosts know I don't deserve forgiveness."

"But it's not _their_ forgiveness you need." Thor gave him a knowing look. "It is hard to see the joy in life when one is haunted by the past. The company of the living is the best way to chase away the dead. But they will return again and again until you make your peace with them."

_"This world craves peace, but humanity is a violent thing. It cannot achieve peace. Not on its own. So we will give it to them.—"_

"Peace," Bucky said. "Zola told me once that I was giving them peace."

_"Those who would oppose us must be laid to rest. We will tear this world down and build a better one."_

"That he was going to remake the world."

"The man who believes himself a god is a fool."

"Aren't you a god?"

"Aye. And a fool." Thor smiled.

"Why do you care about Earth so much?"

Thor smiled, eyes crinkling—joy and pain and the kind of deep wisdom that comes only with age. "Because of my daughter."

"She's here?"

"She fights on the other side of the globe, guards the east while I guard the west." He shifted his weight. I wanted her to stay in Asgard, after her mother's death, and she did, for a while." He sighed, "But she's not a child any longer. In a few more years she'll be a hundred years old. A woman."

Bucky stared at him. "Your people measure time differently than we do, or do you just...age differently than humans?"

"Yes."

"Bucky?" Steve's voice was hesitant. He stood at the edge of the woods, shoulders hunched, looking somehow smaller than he'd been in decades—centuries.

Bucky smiled at Steve, raised his hand in a half-wave. "Thanks for the pep talk ," he said turning back to Thor. "Enjoy the rest of the sunset."

He chuckled. "My father used to tell me: 'The sun does not rise nor set. We all revolve around it. It's important to remember this when things are at their darkest." He pulled his hammer from his belt and thumped it gently against Bucky's chest. "You are not the center. You revolve, as do we all. It's your job to make sure we keep spinning." He raised his hammer to the sky and the clouds above began to whirl, forming a small tornado. Then he flew up into the air and disappeared.

"And we thought Howard's flying cars were cool," Steve said.

"And now his son's a flying robot," Bucky said. "Who'd a thunk it?"

Steve stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking as awkwardly uncomfortable as he'd been at their school dance back in '34. "If you want me to go I will, I just—" he swallowed. "I needed to know you were okay."

The ghosts were still behind them, Bucky could feel their stares, their cold hatred bleeding into the air. But he kept his focus on Steve, on the hopeful quirk in his lips. "I'm fine," Bucky said, and forced out a smile that sliced the edges of his mouth like broken glass.

"You're not," Steve said, "and neither am I." Steve ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up in sloppy spikes. It made him look years younger, made Bucky's heart clench as he remembered another lifetime, a brutally hot summer day, where they'd gotten caught in the rain. "And how can we be? This time...it's—it's all wrong, Buck. Everything's broken."

Bucky nodded, breaking Steve's gaze. He looked down at himself as he gathered his thoughts, noting the wide tear across his shirt—the shirt Steve had loaned him. "So what do we do? Build ourselves a time machine and fix it?"

"For all we know, Tony's got one of those."

A soft thrumming sound drew their attention. A gold and red figure rose up from behind the rock edge. "You talking about me?"

Steve folded his arms across his chest. "You spying on us?"

"Course not, was just waiting for my cue." Tony landed softly, a few feet away from them. "Dinner time, for those of the flesh-y persuasion. My turn to be lookout."

"You hungry?" Steve asked, nudging his shoulder against Bucky's.

"Yeah." Bucky took one last look across the water. "Doesn't look right."

"Nope." Steve fell in next to Bucky as they headed towards the path down. "But at least the Hudson still looks the same." Steve threaded his fingers through Bucky's, fell into step beside him.

"Hey Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"You have another shirt I could borrow?"

#  
Bucky smoothed down the mostly-clean thermal shirt Steve had scrounged up for him. It fit, though the sleeves were too tight around his arms. The scent of cooking food drifted towards him from down the hall, along with Roberta's laughter and an indignant cry of Thor's.

He followed the sound of their voices, and the smell of onions, trying to recall the last time he'd smelled cooking. There were several memories, though the most recent ones didn't come with the taste of food only the sense memory of a target hit.

"That's not how you cut a tomato!" Steve said.

And that innocuous sentence froze Bucky in his tracks. Because he'd heard that sentence—that exact tone—before.

_"Give me that, you oaf. You can't just goon on through everything in life," Steve said taking the knife from Bucky's hand._

_"Worked for me so far," Bucky said, leaning against their counter, so he could get a better look at Steve, slicing the tomato into perfectly even, thin sections. The sun coming in through the window glinted off Steve's hair, giving it a golden tinge, a crooked halo for an earth-bound angel._

"Don't hack, just slide it through."

"A skilled hand," Thor said, with admiration.

Bucky turned the corner and watched Steve work for a few more moments before they noticed his presence.

"Come on in," Roberta said, waving him over to the table. "Make yourself useful." She pointed at a pile of mismatched plates on the end of the large workbench that served as Steve's countertop.

They'd furnished the kitchen with a combination of metal rolling shelves and a heavy wooden table and chair set that looked like it'd been patched back together more than a handful of times. He grabbed a stack of plates and headed to the table.

"Have your ghosts left you?" Thor asked, smiling at Bucky politely as he passed, like he'd just asked him about the weather.

"Ghosts?" Steve asked, brow furrowed.

Bucky continued setting the plates down, ignoring the way Steve's eyes were boring into the back of his head. "For now."

"You were seeing ghosts?" Steve asked.

"Memories," Bucky said. "Bad ones."

Steve's face fell. _Why didn't you tell me?_ he asked silently.

_You have enough shit to deal with._

"Are you...still seeing them?"

"Not at the moment."

"Not at the—" Steve let out a huff. "You need to tell Bruce."

"He knows. Said there's not much I can do."

"That's bull, there's gotta be—Buck, look at who we're in a room with!"

"The ghosts will leave when he's done with them," Thor said, setting down a big bowl of some kind of stew that smelled so incredibly good they all collectively fell silent.

Steve didn't mention Bucky's ghosts again the whole time they ate, or afterwards. He didn't mention much of anything, just stayed silent, sullen and deep in thought. He and Thor cleared the table, leaving Roberta alone with Bucky.

"So your uniform..." Bucky said, "...that come with the title?"

"Yeah." She smiled, dimples showing. "I volunteered, like Steve, I guess. He was my role model in a lot of ways."

Bucky smiled back; something about that statement made him feel like the world wasn't completely lost after all. At least people still knew Steve, knew that he was the best of them.

"So when Alchemax rebooted the Super Soldier program, I signed up right away." She traced her finger along the edge of her glass. "But the serum didn't work, or that's what they told me. Gave me a nice cushy office job instead, crunching numbers. So dull I couldn't really tell one day from the next, or tell you what exactly I'd done that day." She looked up at him. "Only, really, I never did any number crunching, that's just what they let me remember. The serum worked but it wasn't permanent. So whenever they decided to send me out they...activated me. And then they shut me down again afterwards, left me with no memory of the missions, no memory of what I could really do."

"How?" Bucky asked, his throat dry. It all sounded terribly familiar.

"Command words. To interface with the uh... the chip they put in my head. It's like a serum-release implant, triggers the change."

Bucky was furious. "They lied to you. They used you."

"Yeah, they did." She ran her lip through her teeth. "Wasn't just Alchemax though. My husband, they...they paid him to keep me in the dark. Taught him shutdown codes he could use if I started to remember."

"Did he use them?" Bucky asked.

"No way I'd know if he did." She shrugged. "Anyway, I started to figure it out, and it—it hurt. Physically. Couldn't get control over the implant for months. It was like there was this other me trapped inside my head, inside my body."

"But you did it?"

"Mm. Reflex, I guess. Alchemax threatened my kids. I changed, I saved them. Got them far away."

"How far?"

"Asgard. They're safe there. Until I can make this place home for them again. But I miss them something fierce."

"So you knew Thor, how'd you meet..." Bucky pointed at the door.

"He introduced me to the rest of these chuckleheads, and the rest is history. Or well, it will be, assuming we make sure there's a future." She pointed at him. "And we will."

Her conviction reminded him of Steve. "Can I ask you something?" He thought of the smaller, bony Steve of his memories and the way he was now. He loved both, but had never asked him what he was suddenly dying to know. "Which do you like better?"

"Which...Avenger?" She arched an eyebrow.

"No, I mean which...version of you?"

"Oh...well, that's a tricky one. Nothing feels quite like being able to throw a tank, but this stuff...it has a limited lifespan. I burn through it all and that's it. It runs out, so do I. One thousand hours total."

"Did Alchemax tell you that?"

"Bruce did."

"There has to be a way to—"

"Maybe. Maybe not. More important to fix this place. Make it a planet worth living on again. My kids deserve it, we deserve it."

"Damn right we do," said Natasha from the door.

"Back already?" Roberta asked grinning wide.

"You think I'm an amateur?" Natasha smirked as she took a seat next to Roberta.

"Most definitely not," Roberta said, "But last time I checked, the Digger only went up to 75mph. That means you took what, like fifteen minutes to get that doohickey. Did you get it?"

"I got it in _twelve_."

"Making the rest of us look bad."

"It's what I do."

"What'd you get?" Steve asked, crossing the room.

"Come and see," Natasha said, her eyes resting on Bucky for a beat before she turned and headed down the hall. Steve and Roberta followed her out.

Bucky trailed behind the others, slowing his steps when he saw what room they were headed towards. Bruce was standing guard outside. He let his arms drop to his sides at Bucky's approach, and nodded towards the door. "The timeline's turned off."

"Doesn't matter, I know what's on it."

"Someday we should compare our greatest hits." Bruce quirked an eyebrow. "Pretty sure I got you beat."

Bucky stared at him. "You think?"

Bruce's eyes flickered green. "Yeah, I do." He took a slow breath in and out through his nose, gave Bucky a bitter smile. "We can't undo what we did, can't forgive ourselves either. Trust me, I've tried. Doesn't matter if we were in control of our actions or not."

"No," Bucky agreed. "It doesn't."

"But what we _can_ do is try to make the future better. Use our _considerable_ skills to knock that overblown digital ego offline."

"You think there's a way to take him down?"

"Everybody falls. Takes some longer then others." He turned on his heel and headed into the room. "We just got that out of the way early."

Bucky followed him in, past the dormant timeline—which he gave a wide berth nonetheless, towards the back of the control room where the others were gathered. The small silver disc was still behind its force-field column.

"...but yeah, in theory," Tony said, tapping his finger against the energy shield.

Steve smiled at Bucky, stepped back to give him room by his side.

"So what is it?" Bucky asked.

"The other piece of tech we needed."

Bucky eyed the new item warily—a small red and gold sphere. "More of Zola's tech?"

Tony scoffed. "Hardly. This is one of mine."

"Natasha had to steal your own stuff back?" Steve asked.

"Yeah. Zola took everything of mine he could get his paws on after I was..." Tony looked at Bucky. "...relocated. At any rate, this here is a babelfish."

"A what?"

"It's a universal code translator. Take a reading off of something, speak its language." He pointed at Zola's disc. "If we can just get this thing to react, to give off any kind of signal, we can figure out how to talk to it—send _it_ a command."

"Okay," Bucky looked from the small sphere to Zola's disc. "And what are we going to tell it?"

"Oh I don't know, I was thinking something along the lines of..." Tony flipped Bucky the bird.

"Shut it down," Bucky said, thinking of the woman—Eliza—and her protest. "That's the command we need to send. Shut it down—his program, everything he runs on."

"Yeah, that's where it gets dicey," Tony said.

"Dicey?" Steve crossed his arms over his chest.

"Everything he runs on is...everything." Tony spread his fingers wide.

"Zola is in every networked computer system," Natasha said. "And in his cities- _all_ the cities on the globe he's taken over—"

"Which is most of them—" Tony interjected.

"—those systems regulate everything from electricity to water to air purification. We shut him down, people die."

"So we need to remove him from the system without breaking it," Steve said.

"Delete him," Bucky nodded to himself. "Undo his code."

"Yup."

"I'm assuming you've tried this already," Steve said drily.

"Yeah, a few times." Tony shrugged.

"How'd that go?"

"Not great."

"So how's this different?"

"He's gotten careless," Bruce smirked. "Near-omnipotence does that to you." He walked over to the suspended disc in the back of the room. "His range is greater now that it's ever been, but he doesn't take precautions the way he used to. Used to be he'd have self-destruct protocols stored on his tech in case somebody on the outside got a hold of it." Bruce nodded at the disc. "This thing's still intact."

"But you still need to crack it open."

"Can't get anything past you." Tony pointed at the babelfish. "We tried sending an open command already, but I've got another sixty trillion to try."

"Only sixty trillion?" Bucky asked. Tony ignored him.

"It sounds like a long-shot," Steve said. "But historically speaking, those have worked out for me...on occasion."

"Long shots are all we got, these days." Tony tossed the babelfish straight up into the air and caught it again.

"How long do you need to run the command cycles?" Bruce asked.

"At least six hours." Tony twisted the minuscule dials on the babelfish.

"Get some rest, people." Tony said. "I need to do some maintenance on myself anyway." He gestured down at his legs. "Not gonna make it through another real fight without a tune-up. Bruce, wanna join me in the shop?"

"You just said get some rest."

"We both know you never sleep."

"I do, actually. Sometimes for three, even four hours."

"Look if you don't want to help me keep my only remaining body functional, that's okay. It won't hurt my feelings or anything."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. "Have I ever said no?"

"Yes. Yes you have. And it hurt every time."

"When?" Bruce looked genuinely confused. "You mean the time I had the stomach flu?"

"There were other times."

"You're ridiculous."

"Have you seen your wardrobe?"

Bruce left, muttering under his breath.

"Seriously," Tony looked from Steve to Bucky. "Go get some rest. You two especially. I know you've been through worse, but once we crack this disc, stuff's gonna get a lot bumpier."

Steve nodded, and Bucky followed him out into the hall.

#

The little grey bedroom was a small comfort, but at least it gave them some privacy.

"For being a pull-out couch, this bed is real cozy," Steve said, smoothing his hand over the mattress.

"That an invite, Rogers?" Bucky said automatically as he sat down next to him. His head gave another muted throb. The ache never went away fully, it just came and went in waves.

"Water?"

"No, I just need to sit," Bucky rubbed at his temples, eyes closed, until the ache started to ease. "You think Stark's plan is gonna work?"

"I'm not even sure I know what the plan _is_ yet."

"He's gonna try to turn Zola's tech against him."

"You think?"

"It won't work. Others have tried."

"You remember any specifics?"

" _I_ tried it myself." Bucky paused. "Tried to override Zola's code. Got lucid enough to remember that he had to be stopped, even if I couldn't remember why....or who I was." Bucky shook his head. "I think, I think I went to Tony. That's why he—" Bucky looked down at his hands as his fingers twitched— click, click, click, click. "That's why Zola sent _me_ to kill him instead of the drones. Because I—because I defied him."

"Buck—"

"Howard's son is a robot because of me."

"It's not your fault, it wasn't you." Steve took Bucky's hand in his, laced their fingers together.

"It was." Bucky traced his other hand over Steve's arm, familiar and foreign all at once. His fingertips remembered these thickly muscled curves, but they still searched for the other Steve beneath—the one he'd hugged goodbye in Brooklyn, the one he'd fallen in love with. "Hydra—Zola made me carry out their orders, and I couldn't say no...at least not all of the time." That pressure in his head settled in between his eyes. He tried to ignore it, to will the pain away. "But it was me. I remember planning each kill, executing it. I remember the _satisfaction_ of completing the mission."

"That was them—they did that to you. They—"

"What the fuck does it matter?" Bucky stood, anger making his blood boil. "You saw the timeline, same as me."

Steve swallowed, nodded.

"So you know," Bucky ran his fingers through his hair.

"Know...all the shitty things Zola did to you? Yeah."

Bucky scoffed. "1948, 1952, 1963, 1966, 1968, 1977, 1983..."

"Bucky, what—"

"Every time a key figure in the resistance was taken out, I was the one pulling the trigger. Everyone who stood in Hydra's way. Hell I killed two of these 'Avengers'."

"They seem pretty alive to me. Guess you're losing your touch."

"Stark is a robot, and Natalia—"

"Natalia?"

"Natasha."

"You know her."

"I think I used to."

Steve walked up behind Bucky, wrapped his arms tentatively around his waist. "It's not your fault," he said, resting his head on Bucky's shoulder. "You're not the reason the world is the way it is, and you know that." Bucky closed his eyes and let himself, for just that moment, sink into Steve's embrace, let the heat of his body warm him, let himself revel in the touch, the press of their bodies. "But you know what?" Steve said, voice a touch louder, stronger. "I don't care." He kissed Bucky's shoulder. "I don't care what you did." He moved up the side of Bucky's neck. "You're here. I thought I lost you, I thought I'd never see you again. But you're _here_." His hand cupped Bucky through his pants.

Bucky's head arched back as Steve nuzzled that spot behind Bucky's ear, pulling the tender skin between his teeth. He moaned, trying to hold it in, trying to keep quiet, there were others down the hall... But then Steve bit down by his neck, and Bucky went instantly rock hard.

"Blame yourself all you want, that doesn't make it your fault."

Bucky wanted to protest but instead, his sorrow left him, escaped like heat. He let his eyes fall shut, let the warm realness of Steve close around him. Bucky snaked his hands between them, reached down to Steve's waist and undid his pants, sliding his hand inside. Steve loosened his grip, long enough to shove his pants further down and Bucky seized the moment, spun around and dropped to his knees. "I dreamed of you," he said, as he yanked Steve's pants off his legs. "When they put me under, before they woke me up. I didn't always remember your name, but I knew you." He closed his lips around Steve's length, looked up and saw that sky blue gaze looking down at him like he was something holy.

#

He collapsed against Steve, feeling light and empty, and for that one moment he felt joy. His eyes burned as he gave himself that moment—Steve's arms around his waist, the smell of him, the taste of his skin. "I love you," he said, the one unchanged truth in his life. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," Steve said, nuzzling against Bucky's shoulder as he pulled them closer.

Steve snored so softly now. He'd been louder when he was younger, when the winter brought endless congestion and coughs. Bucky remembered wondering how someone so small could snore that loudly. His fingers traced feather-light over Steve's broad chest, the memory of how he used to feel just underneath the surface.

Carefully, Bucky extracted himself from Steve's arms, slipped on his clothes and headed down the hall.

The long, grey hallway was empty and still. He paused, listening for sounds from the gym, from the med-lab, but there was nothing.

Bucky looked over his shoulder back into the room. Steve was still curled on his side, deep asleep.

_"You sleep like the dead, Steve." Bucky grabbed his thin shoulders, shaking him gently, but Steve didn't react at all, still fast asleep. They had to get up or they'd be late for work. He pulled back the curtains, and the sun poured in through the window._

_Steve's face scrunched in dismay and he brought his hand up to shield his eyes. "What time is it?"_

_"We're late."_

_"What? Why didn't you wake me earlier?"_

_"I tried."_

_"Try harder," Steve said, throwing his pillow at Bucky with a smirk—hair a mess and eyes brighter than the morning sky and twice as beautiful._

Bucky padded silently down the hall to the control room. It didn't take much to coax open the door; it retracted into the wall without a sound. The lights in the room came on as he entered, but no alarm went off, at least none he could sense.

The timeline was still powered down, its projector alone in the center of the room, accusatory even in its idle state. Bucky squared his shoulders, took a steadying breath before approaching it. He'd seen Tony turn it off once, took an educated guess at where the power button was. The timeline appeared, showing the last twenty years. When he zoomed in on the current year he saw the most significant recent event—Steve Rogers/Captain America found, May 8th, 2111;

_Steve Rogers/Captain America freed May 10th, 2111, James Barnes/Winter Soldier freed May 10th, 2111._

Bucky looked at the codename, opened himself to his memories—the ones he'd been too afraid to face. Winter Soldier wasn't a name Zola had given him. Zola called him by his name at first, then soldier. Hydra called him soldier, or asset, or 'you'.

"Show all references to Winter Soldier."

The timeline flickered, then unfurled, stretching wide, nearly spanning the room. A small red star marked each event, like a cruel game of connect the dots.

He followed the dates backwards in time, 2111, 2037, 2033, 2028, 2009...

And each date did evoke a memory, if he stared at it long enough. Though the timeline didn't have all the details right.

"Three not one," he muttered, editing the number of victims noted on July 3rd, 2003. It was a strange reaction, more automatic than a conscious decision. He worked quickly, correcting the data as it came to him. They'd missed some of his targets entirely, attributed them to someone else in four cases. And as he corrected the data, he saw the faces of the victims, saw the still images in the timeline move and stare at him, accusation and acknowledgement at once. What he was doing wasn't going to bring them back, wasn't going to make anything better, but there he was doing it nonetheless.

From the other side of the room came a soft hiss, quick and nearly inaudible, like a sharp burst of released air. Bucky froze and looked up, but he couldn't see its source. The other side of the room held rows of equipment, more computer terminals, and the force-field cylinder holding the silver Zola-disc.

He worked furiously, each new date spurring a new memory, a new horror. He barely had time to parse the images before the next date caught his eyes. Something prickled along the side of his face, from his neck up to his temple. He ignored the sensation, far too involved in the corrections he was making. This was what he'd come in here to do. He wanted to see the truth of it, wanted to know how much of it was his fault.

And now he knew, and it was even worse than he imagined. Directors of SHIELD, government officials, radicals that suspected what Zola was trying to do and could've stopped him, maybe, once upon a time, before he rooted himself in everything. All of them taken down, a bullet at a time.

There'd been accidents, too. A few missions where he'd had to take extreme measures to avoid failing, or to escape capture; collateral damage ranging from a half dozen to nearly two hundred. All of them, blood on his hands. Every death another step in Zola's ascension.

"Stark will return and he will believe you are sabotaging their plans," Zola said, speaking into Bucky's mind as clearly as if he was there.

And there, in his periphery, Bucky saw it—a glimpse of white, the doctor's lab-coat, less than twenty feet away. He was here. _He was here._

"Do you really think they trust you? Any of them? After what you've done?" The doctor's voice trickled down Bucky's spine, ice-cold rivulets settling low. "They can never trust you. Nor should they."

Though Bucky kept his focus on the timeline, he could see the doctor — feel him moving, working on something so familiar it made his stomach turn. He knew he should ignore it, shut it out—it was noise in his head, nothing more. Unavoidable hallucinations, like Bruce had said. But he looked anyway, forced himself to confront the rest of the lab. Zola, small and unremarkable, was on the far side of the room; to his right was a metal chair. And Bucky himself was strapped to it, eyes open in a blank, unknowing stare. There were thin metal tendrils coming out of his right arm, dozens of them, each one pulsing, connected to a small red star on the timeline.

"You see?" Zola asked. "You are an intersect. All these people— all of their lives, ended by your hand. You killed them in my name, do you remember?"

"No. No, I—you made me kill them. You and...Karpov and Pierce." Those names hurt. He remembered them, their faces eagerly waiting for an answer, a confirmation of another kill. Bucky stepped back, away from the timeline, as Zola walked closer. "I died. You brought me back, you made me-"

"If we wanted an automaton, we would have built one. We needed your skills, soldier. Your accuracy, your dedication to a clean, quick kill, your ability to think on your feet." Zola smiled, a show of teeth gleaming through the timeline's projected display.

Fear and anger roiled like storm clouds in Bucky's chest. He backed into the wall, nowhere else to go, clenched his eyes shut, told himself it wasn't real, it couldn't be real.

"We needed your obedience, your loyalty. You were no puppet, you were a highly skilled recruit. We may have guided your hand..." Zola huffed a laugh. "But you made the choices, you calculated the velocity of the bullets, the wind resistance, the angle. You were discreet, when we needed you to be, and as inevitable as the tide." "

Bucky's eyes flew open. Zola was on the other side of the room again, standing beside the chair in the back, about to—about to—

Bucky crossed the room, drawn inexorably closer until he was right next to the chair, next to his past self, close enough to hear the slight hitch in his breath when another tendril burst out and shot towards the timeline. _Don't just sit there,_ Bucky thought angrily. _Get up!_ "Get up, damn it! You did it before, do it again! Get up!" Another tendril ruptured out of the elbow, slithered through the air, joining with two other stars. "Do something. Stop him! Don't let him do this!"

But his past self stayed where he was—unmoving, vacant, useless.

And Bucky's fear fell away, left him with rage, pure as salvation. Before he consciously decided to move, he was next to Zola, grabbing for his throat. But his metal fingers closed on air and the illusion of Zola dissolved into nothingness.

"The truth is, I have no need for you now." Zola had vanished, but his voice was still there—louder than before. "After all, what need does God have for a soldier?" Bucky clamped his hands over his ears, but it didn't stop. "However, I began my life as a man, and you are a testament to my greatness."

There was a crackling noise by his ears that Bucky recognized. A visceral, memory tugged at him—warned him of danger, of thin red veins that brought unwanted thoughts and siphoned the ones he treasured away. He clutched at his head as pain shot through him—spreading down from the crown of his head, searing hot.

"And for that reason, I will keep you. Alive or preserved, it doesn't much matter. But I will keep you."

He forced himself to keep his eyes open, but his vision tunneled and went empty, and the air filled with a loud whining buzz, though he could still hear Zola's voice with perfect clarity.

"I understand your pain. I remember emotions...the heartache, the unbearable shame of humanity."

Bucky fell to his knees, equilibrium tilting, and heard himself scream, though it sounded like it was miles away.

"And because I am a merciful God, I will take it all away. I'll scrub your mind, clean as silk. You'll have peace again, and you'll dream. For centuries. Maybe longer."

"No," Bucky gritted out.

"Another martyr. No wonder Rogers is so fixated on you." Zola sighed, and Bucky could feel the air resonate with his exhale. "Very well then. Have your greatest wish." The room itself breathed again, filling with frost, covering the floor, the equipment, the room itself in ice. In snow. A train horn sounded, the air whipped around him, his limbs went stiff and the ground crumbled away beneath him.

The wind bit into Bucky's skin as he fell, freezing the edges of his face. He felt strangely calm as he fell, as the train on the bridge appeared above him, shrouded in white.

The shout from above surprised him. He'd been expecting it, of course, but not the clarity of it. Steve's panicked cry echoed off the ravine before his own piteous cries drowned them out. He heard himself scream, like an outside observer—watched, detached and numb, as his body slammed into the sharp jutting rock and his arm tore free from his body, sending a spray of red into the air.

He landed with a thud, muted by the trees and the bedding of snow and pine-needles. This spot, where he'd stay for endless hours, maybe days until they found him—somehow still alive—a cruel joke, an aberration from the natural order. He should've died here, he should've stayed dead.

Anger flooded his veins, hot enough to melt the snow, to bring life back into his broken limbs. He forced himself to move, used his remaining arm to push himself up. All he had to do was make sure they never found him, or that what they did find was useless. He brought a shaking hand down to his belt. He'd lost his Colt, lost his rifle. And he didn't have enough left in him to stand, let alone walk.

The footsteps came sooner than he expected —heavy boots crunching through the snow. Only one man, maybe a scout. His heart began to race as he awaited the inevitable. If he acted quickly enough, maybe he could disarm the scout, defend himself and then...and then what?

Crunch. Crunch. The boots paused, the scout now visible in the distance, standing in front of the tree line. Bucky couldn't see any details, just a black uniform, a mask and goggles, and a gleaming, nickel-plated gun.

A strong gust of wind scattered the surrounding snow into the air, obscuring his vision. When it settled again, the scout was gone.

"Hello?" Bucky called out—a ludicrous thing to do in this nightmare. And a futile one. He knew who the scout was, knew it deep in his bones, but he had to be able to see him, had to look him in the eyes, because if he couldn't, if he didn't—

A metal vice closed around his throat and the masked scout was on top of him. No face, no eyes visible behind the goggles. But Bucky knew. He knew, as those fingers clamped down harder on his throat, knew as he struggled for air, as he tried to free himself from that titanium grip—too strong, too cold, and as hard as the eyes beneath the mask.

The sky sparked and a dozen silhouettes appeared around him, flanking his other self— photo negatives with eyes whiter than the snow: the general, the Starks, the crown prince of Madripoor, senators and spies and innocents alike. They watched him—a silent jury—and then dissolved, ink blots bleeding into the air.

A ringing filled Bucky's ears and his vision stuttered in and out. His lungs burned with one last, agonizing attempt at a breath and then gave out. For a fraction of a moment, everything went pure white, and then the world un-paused, and he'd switched places—now his metal fingers were crushing the throat of the dying soldier beneath him.

He was practically dead already, Bucky thought, an odd swell of bitterness mixing with the dread in his gut. _"Why couldn't you just have stayed dead?"_ A little more pressure and the vertebrae would snap, a good hard pull and the spinal cord would sever and then he'd never - _they'd_ never. Bucky steeled himself, and curled his left hand tighter, squeezing that fragile neck.

"Buck!" Steve shouted.

Bucky froze, the impossibility of his Steve being here, _now_ sending him into an error loop. He was looking down at his own corpse and he was looking up—up into his own crazed eyes, scraggly long hair, a back muzzle. Metal fingers closed around his throat and he couldn't breathe; he couldn't stop himself from squeezing harder——

"Bucky!" Steve shouted again and the fingers let go. He let go.

Steve was above him, Steve was there looking down at him and it wasn't snowing anymore. The control room's pale-grey walls came into focus, along with Tony, a very-concerned looking Roberta and Natasha, who stood by the door, expression as contained as always. Bucky gulped in air as his heart tripped over itself trying to get back into a slower, normal rhythm.

"Told you it wasn't safe," Natasha said, pointing at them.

Her statement didn't come as a surprise. They'd probably make Bucky leave now, maybe Steve too, but if there was anyway he could convince them, Bucky would leave on his own. It wasn't Steve's fault. None of it was Steve's fault.

"I ran every test in the book —and not in the book, and then some— on that thing," Tony said. He moved closer to them and snatched something from Steve's hand. The metallic saucer.

Bucky blinked, his eyes tearing up from the strain of the last few minutes. Or hours. he wasn't sure how much time had gone by since he'd entered this room. There was something hanging from the side of the saucer—red webbing, little vein-like tendrils, limp and lifeless...but he knew what they were. "Zola. He was here."

Natasha walked closer. "You saw him?"

"I saw all kinds of things," Bucky said, voice shaky. "But I—he was in my head."

"Because of what's inside that thing," Steve said, "that disc. When he had me in his holding cell I fell asleep and when I woke up that same red stuff was stuck to my head and he could—"

"Read your thoughts." Another memory slotted into place in Bucky's mind. The storage vault—a huge room, so vast he couldn't see the ceiling, with a whole hoard of Zola's possessions—outdated technology, tools of war—mechanical, organic and combinations of both. He remembered trying to break free for days until the last of his strength left him. And when he woke up again, there was red webbing attached to his temples. "It's a...neural image and sound transmitter. With electronics, he knows everything—he can absorb any code, override anything, but people—he can't control them directly. With those transmitters though, he knows everything you're thinking. Only while it's connected, and only what you're thinking at that time."

A ray of light came from Tony's eyes as he scanned the saucer. It had expanded, a thick, glowing red line around its center. "You're right. But he wasn't just taking a reading, he was transmitting something. Sending something into your head. Trying to get you to do...something."

"He got inside my head for decades with electro-shock machines and...I don't know what else, and this...it doesn't hurt." Bucky swallowed. "But it's worse." He started to sit up, and Steve helped him, supporting his back. "If that thing was meant for me, then he knows I'm here."

"Maybe. But if he did, he would've attacked the base by now." Tony turned the disc over, eyes still scanning. "I think this was pre-programmed. Maybe not even keyed to you. Spike your adrenaline, unearth your worst fears, sound about right?"

"You're not far off."

Steve's grip tightened ever so slightly.

"But here's the good part—"

"There's a good part?" Steve interjected.

"It short-circuited." Tony said. "Not when Steve pulled it off of you, before then." He pointed at Bucky. "You, my friend— _you_ sent something back at it that shut it down."

"I—what?" _'Shut it down'—the woman in the woods—Eliza—had said._

"Thing about Zola is he loves showing off. He stopped being subtle decades ago. Every piece of his code has a...call it a watermark. So we know it's him." He waggled the disc in front of Bucky's nose. "This thing has brand new code in it that isn't Zola's."

"Why do you think it's from me?" Bucky gripped Steve's arm to get leverage and pushed himself to his feet. "Couldn't somebody or something else have sent that code?"

"Pretty sure it was you." Tony turned his palm down and a small beam of light came out of his wrist, projecting a small block of text. A string of numbers, all ones and zeroes. "It's all binary. A very particular kind of binary."

"One we know Department X favored way back in the day," Bruce added.

"In other words, the only piece of technology left that uses that kind of code is right here." Tony tapped Bucky's arm.

Bucky stared at the metal limb. "Hydra gave me this arm."

"True, but they didn't design it. They got it from Department X. Hydra modified it a bunch of times, but even they didn't have the capacity to build something like this. You know why this code you sent is so special?"

Bucky didn't answer.

"Because it's simple. Just one command. 'Stop.'"

"And it worked?" Bucky asked, looking at the disc again.

"It worked. More importantly, it overrode the existing code, which means somewhere in there..." Tony waved his hand over Bucky's chest. "...you've got a built-in translator."

"One of the implants," Bruce said quietly, arms folded across his chest. "One of the trackers maybe."

Bucky's heart sped up again. "You said they were all fried, back when—"

"They were. Or I thought they were. But...a lot of Zola's newer tech can repair itself."

"So that's it, then." Bucky swallowed. "He knows where I am. Knows where we are."

"No." Bruce raised his hand, placating. "This was something short-range. Zola probably built in a subroutine—like an ID code—to make sure his drones would always be able to recognize you up close. If you were giving off a signal strong enough to get through our walls, we'd know. "

"You're safe here," Tony echoed. "We took all the precautions we had to, to make sure—"

Steve's head whipped around. He stared at Bruce for a second, then stepped between Tony and Bucky, brow furrowed. "Did you do this on purpose?"

"What?" Tony held his hands up, gears squeaking slightly.

"You heard me. Did you set this up? So Bucky would come in here alone?"

"He broke in. All by himself—"

Steve had Tony pinned against the wall, before Bucky had fully registered how quickly he'd moved. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bruce raise his chin, caught a green glint in his eyes, but he stayed where he was.

"You made him go through that—"

"I _suspected_ the tech would react to him—"

"—after everything he's been through?" Steve snarled.

"And I was right. It did react." Tony shoved Steve off of him, sending him flying twenty feet back. Bucky caught Steve before he crashed against the wall.

Tony nodded at them, "Thanks to you, we accomplished more in the last hour than we have in decades!"

Bucky let out a breath and let go of Steve before answering. "If it helps take Zola down, then good. But why didn't you tell me. Give me a heads up?"

"Had to be a genuine adrenaline response. It would've never opened otherwise."

Steve's fury was still pouring off of him. "You used him."

"Steve—"

"Yeah, we did. To save what's left of this crap-hole of a world. And you know what? I'm willing to bet Bucky here—can I call you Bucky?—wants to stop Zola even more than we do."

"I do." Bucky put a hand on Steve's chest before focusing on Tony. "What's the plan?"

"We need to recreate the code you made to fry that thing. Upload it into something of ours, infiltrate one of Zola's mainframes. Take him down from the inside."

"How are you gonna infiltrate him? He'll see you coming miles away." Bucky stated it as an absolute, because in his mind, it was. Zola had made it to the top of the food-chain, and stayed there for over a century. Taking him down wouldn't be easy.

"We're gonna put the code inside something he can't override."

"What's that?" Steve asked, voice still tight with anger.

Tony spread his hands wide. "Me."

#

Steve and Tony had been arguing for hours; their voices carried down the hall, in through the open gym door. They hadn't even noticed Bucky leave.

The boxing bag was sturdy—made to take a serious beating. It'd have to be, given the base's occupants. He threw a hook, an uppercut, forced his mind to focus on the feel of the leather grazing his knuckles, the weight of the bag.

But his personal horror-show from a few hours earlier was still running on endless loop in his brain. The snow, the fall, the feel of his own throat in his hands, the terror he felt when he looked up into his own, empty eyes. His fear was gone, replaced with a low-burning anger—at Zola, at himself, at the life he and Steve had both missed out on.

"It's our fault." Bruce was standing by the door, watching Bucky. He stepped inside, and pushed a button in the wall, closing the door behind him.

On its rebound, Bucky caught the bag with his palm, held it still while Bruce crossed the gym floor.

"Tony'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this." Bruce cocked his head. "Well, he'd try."

"Telling me what?"

"And technically I'm keeping my word. He told me not to tell Steve, and I'm telling you, so..." Bruce waved at the bag. "Don't stop on my account, I know how important stress relief is."

Bucky gave him a look, wiped the sweat from his brow and went back to jabbing the bag, light enough to hear every word.

"Back in 2014, we tried to fight back. Tried to make a broad offensive strike against Hydra." Bruce stood a few feet out of range of the bag, hands on his hips, eyes on the floor. "We knew they were up to something big, but we didn't know what. Didn't find out about their gun ships until they launched. We took them down..." He chewed on his lip. "But we weren't fast enough. By the time we took the core out of the last ship, they'd taken out nearly a million people."

Bucky's punches got stronger, sending the bag rattling on its chains.

"Tony and I had been working on something for years. Our vision—autonomous, renewable, artificial warriors that Hydra wouldn't be able to buy or sweet talk."

Dread settled in Bucky's gut, disputing his rhythm. "The drones?"

Bruce nodded. "Tony had the tech and the resources to build as many as we needed. The design was brilliant—they just needed the ability to act and think on their own." Bruce picked at the seam of the leather bag. "So we built an AI to run the drones—an endless supply of titanium-alloy bodies, one virtual mind controlling them. And it _did_ help us take down Hydra."

"And cleared the way for Zola."

Bruce nodded. "The AI tried to shut him down, but couldn't. Zola merged with it, turned it against us and then fused with it, taking over its whole network and all of the drones we'd built." Bruce cleared his throat. "We lost thousands more people that day, and just about all of our resources."

Bucky kept his eyes on the bag, trying to digest what Bruce had told him.

"We tried to fix things, and...we made them infinitely worse." Bruce scoffed. "Story of my life."

"You didn't know it would turn out that way." Bucky threw one last solid hook against the bag. "And you're still fighting."

"Have to."

Bucky nodded to himself, mulling it over. "Doesn't change anything. Whatever the plan is, I'm in."

"I know. That's not why I'm here. Just want to make sure you're clear on something."

"What's that?"

"There is no atonement, no redemption. Not for guys like us. Not for me, not for Tony, and not for you."

Bucky let his arms drop, met Bruce's eyes. "Then what do we do?" The bottom had dropped out of his anger, left him with nothing but bitter regret. "What the fuck do we do?"

"We go after the ones worse than us." Slight curve to his lips, Bruce added. "Thing about Zola is, he's pretty impossible to smash."

"So I've noticed."

"I can't hurt him. I can't break him." Bruce's voice went softer, conspiratorial. "But _you_ can. You're the only one who can."

Bucky took a step closer. "I'm listening."

#

"This is a terrible plan," Bucky said, under his breath. The Digger rolled along slowly, grinding a fresh tunnel through the earth.

Steve agreed, lips pinched. "What makes you think he's not going to figure out what you're up to, Tony?"

"He'll figure it out, I'm just betting on him figuring it out a second too late."

Bruce cleared his throat. "Let me restate what I said five minutes ago: Based on Zola's track record with us, your odds are terrible."

"Give me a better option." Tony folded his arms across his chest, waiting.

Bruce's eyes flicked over to Bucky, too quick for anyone but Bucky to notice. They'd come up with another plan, one that Tony and Steve would never, ever agree to. So Bucky held his tongue along with his secret co-conspirator.

"We go in together, make a distraction, give you cover," Steve said.

"Distractions are the only surefire way to get us caught," Tony snapped.

"Tony wants to throw himself headfirst into the beehive, I say let him," Natasha said. She held her hand out between Steve and Bucky. Cupped in her palm were two small earpieces.

Steve picked one up, examined it closely. "When Zola first captured me, some of his human guards were wearing these." He squinted. "Or something similar. Had an eyepiece attached to it."

"These are just audio-comms," Natasha said. "Headphone and mic in one, long range, low interference. Most of the time."

"Zola's 'citizens' wear _syncs_ ," Tony added.

"What are syncs?"

"They're enhanced visual and auditory information and 'full'—" Tony made air-quotes. "—access to the web."

"The web?"

"What's left of the Internet. It was a repository of just about everything. A way for people to talk to each other, a shared encyclopedia, a mall, and millions of kitten and puppy videos"

"That...doesn't sound terrible," Bucky said, slipping the other comm into his ear.

"It didn't used to be. It was awesome." Tony sighed. "But it's data, and everywhere there's data, there's Zola. His code spread through it—he took out what he didn't agree with, added his own dogma and that's all that people have access to when they're wearing one—no more school, no more studying, instant access to everything you'd ever need to know, just so long as its Zola-approved."

"That's..." Steve shook his head. "So he rewrote history."

"He continuously rewrites it. Every minute of every day."

The Digger came to an abrupt halt, then changed direction, pushing up. Chunks of soil and rock pattered against the hull.

Bucky thought of the woman in the woods—her frantic, furious expression. She'd chosen death over life under Zola. "Some of them still know the truth."

"A few. And they try to spread the truth by word of mouth, history books—the few that weren't destroyed. But those people, the ones who don't comply, lose their citizenship."

"And then they're hunted by drones," Bucky finished. He steadied himself as the Digger rumbled to a halt. The night sky was barely visible through the small cockpit window, covered in dirt as it was.

"Yup." Tony moved towards the door.

"The ones that get away, live outside the city," Roberta said, "the few spots Zola can't reach—the blind spots."

Natasha gestured at the disruptor. "We live in a blind spot, and we've done everything we can to keep it that way."

"Why don't more people stay down in the IRT station with you?" Bucky asked.

Tony sighed. "Natasha'll tell you that one. I'm gonna head out."

"Remember to signal when you get to checkpoint A," Bruce said as Tony stepped outside.

"Yes, Mom," Tony's voice said through their comms.

"They don't stay with us, because they don't trust us," Natasha said.

Bruce let his head hang. Bucky recognized the weight of guilt in his stance.

"They don't trust _any_ of us," Natasha said, eyes flicking to Bruce and back.

"With good reason," Bruce said.

Roberta smiled, sadly. "We save them, as many as we can, but to a lot of them, we're just as scary as Zola."

Bucky nodded to himself.

"I stand at the ready," Thor said, voice clear in Bucky's earpiece.

"Well, let's give them a reason to trust us, then," Steve said.

#

"Damn it," Bruce snapped, voice shockingly loud. They'd been holding a collective breath since Tony's last message and the staccato barrage of laser-blasts that followed.

"That's it. His signal's dead," Natasha said, checking the Digger's readouts again.

"We knew this was a long-shot," Bucky said, "maybe if we—"

"Phase three?" Roberta asked, slipping on her cowl.

"Phase three is a go," Natasha said.

"Yeah," Bruce growled, stepping away from the console. "Cap, Barnes, you ready?" His eyes rested on Bucky just long enough to convey, _'Don't tell them our backup plan. Not yet.'_

"Ready," Steve said and Bucky thought for a moment, that at least this, _this_ felt familiar—going into battle by Steve's side.

"Thor should be in position by now. Look for his signal," Natasha pushed a few buttons on the Digger. It rumbled to a halt and the door hissed open.

Roberta stepped through the door and hit the ground shifting, shoulders broadening as she spread her red, glowing wings and lifted up into the sky. "I'll rendezvous with Thor. Go to your positions, Natasha, meet us at quadrant three.

"Roger that," Natasha said, giving Steve a deadpan look.

"I've never heard that before. Except for every day during the war." He elbowed Bucky in the ribs.

"What? Like anyone could resist that." Bucky smiled. The air was tense with the impending chaos to come, but still, he felt calmer than he had since he'd woken up in Bruce's med-lab. The world might still be fucked, but at least it made sense again. They had a looming evil to fight, their chances of survival were slim to none, and there was no place he'd rather be than here, by Steve's side. And if phase three failed, well—he and Bruce still had Plan Z.

"Kinda figured. I'm gonna drive Bruce closer—he's not great with stealth." Natasha cracked a smile. "Good luck, you two."

"We're gonna need it," Bucky muttered under his breath as he fell into step besides Steve.

#

The base they'd targeted was the only one within a hundred-mile radius they could reach with the Digger. Natasha had confirmed it held one of Zola's mainframes—one with a constant upload stream. It had been one of his main bases fifty years ago when he'd still had cities on the East Coast to take over; it had stood unused for decades, an outdated drone-making facility. But Zola never shut down his mainframes. "Continuous data mergers, tons of redundancy. So he always has a back-up," Roberta said, her voice crystal clear through the communicator. "In case we ever knock one out successfully."

"How many computers is he in?" Steve asked. He raised his hand, gave Bucky signals for their next few steps. They had to run across the open space ahead without being seen by the few drones hovering near the side entrance to the base.

Roberta scoffed. "Pretty much all of them, but to different degrees. The mainframes hold more of his persona, he can move his whole consciousness into any one of them."

"Has he ever done that?" Bucky asked carefully. He didn't want to give away what he had planned, but he couldn't pass up the chance to ask either. The more he knew going in, the better his chances were.

"Special occasions—something he wants to give his full attention to. He did it when he caught Tony once, ten years ago. But then he realized what we were up to and got out before we blew that base to kingdom come."

"You've been at this a long time," Steve said.

"Not as long as the others, but yeah."

"And what do you think our chances are?"

She laughed sharply. "Honestly? Slim to none. But it doesn't matter."

"Why not?" Bucky asked, scanning the horizon, ready to sprint the final stretch at Steve's word.

"Because what matters is that we fight. Even if we don't win. We fight. We fight every damn day until we take him down."

"Let's make sure today's the day, then," Steve said, and broke into a run, Bucky right beside him.

#

The catwalk above the drone assembly room was narrow—barely wide enough for Steve and Bucky to crawl along as they made their way slowly in. They'd gotten through the outer doors of the facility without being detected, thanks to Thor and Roberta running distraction.  
  
"Still no sign of Tony," Natasha said through the comm. "Bruce, head up another level, I'll circle back to you."

"Heading down," Bucky said as he grabbed hold of the railing and let himself drop. Steve landed a half-second later.

"The mainframe should be straight ahead," Bucky whispered, his memory of the facility coming into focus. He'd been here once, decades ago, though he couldn't remember why. It had held other weapons then, but if Zola hadn't relocated the main computers then he knew exactly where to find them. Steve followed on his heels as they made their way from behind the conveyor belt over to the wall of servers at the back.

"If they spot us, I'll keep them off of you," Steve said, eyes on the hovering cameras orbiting the room.

Bucky darted over to the server-array in the back and looked for a console, or an access port. They were behind a clear wall, deceptively thin but strong. But there was a way through—he remembered them sliding open, there was an access panel somewhere—

A howl of rage echoed through the base, rattling the walls. Bruce had found Tony. There was a loud cracking sound and another, and then all Hell broke loose.

The wall on their left collapsed as Bruce came crashing through, huge, green and angry, with Tony clamped under his arm. There was no way to know if he'd survived or not, but Bruce wasn't leaving him behind either way.

"Get out of there!" Natasha shouted over the communicators. The drone-making machines came to life, turning on with the loud creaking of old, unmaintained gears. "That place is gonna go down in a few minutes one way or the other."

The clear wall protecting the mainframes still stood, despite the destruction around them, but, Bucky noted, a hairline fracture had formed, running down the side. "Go on, I'll stay here, finish the mission."

"No way! Buck—we've got to go—we'll find another way to—"

Bucky shoved Steve out of the way just as a newly constructed drone aimed its arm-cannon at them. The blast missed him by a fraction of an inch. "Just go! I have to finish this!"

"Barnes, listen to Rogers! Zola will block the upload if he thinks it's been compromised!" Natasha said.

"No, he won't." Bucky said, and he knew he was right. Zola never turned off his mainframes. He'd transfer himself out of them, but he kept them running as long as he could, so he could see everything. He was watching them right now, through the cameras, through the drones.

Bruce paused, looking at them quizzically before he slammed his fist through the far wall, making them an opening.

"Steve, go!" Bucky pleaded. "I'll be fine."

"No! I'm not just gonna—" Steve's words were cut off as Bruce grabbed him by the waist and yanked him up off the ground, smashing through the remains of the wall and into the next room. The drones converged on them, but the lasers from their cannons bounced off Bruce's broad back harmlessly.

Not a single one of the drones spared Bucky so much as a glance, all of them focused on Bruce and—based on the sounds raging outside—thunder and shouts—Thor and Roberta.

"Bucky!" Steve called through the comm. "Get out of there!"

"In a minute." Bucky took one more look at the glass between him and the servers. He could bring it down but it'd take time—time he didn't have. The drones were being assembled at an alarming rate, twenty of them already on Bruce, with more outside. This model was older—didn't have the same shutdown weakness that the newer ones did. He had to cut off the supply or the Avengers would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Choice made, he ran towards the assembly machines and yanked out every power cable he came across. The conveyer belt slowed to a halt first, then the large robotic arms that had been putting the heads on the completed bodies. Three incomplete drones hung overhead, lifeless dolls.

"They've got limited numbers now. Take them down or get away, you should be in the clear. I'll join you in—"

"Negative, Barnes. Incoming, Rev-38 drones en route." Natasha said, voice clipped. "I'm counting five dozen blips on the radar, probably more behind them."

"Shit." Bucky stood, frozen to the spot as his mind reeled—trying to prioritize, with only seconds to spare. This—all of this was his doing, no matter what the others said. Tony and the others had saved him and Steve from captivity and now they were all going to die.

"Roberta, Thor—we need you higher up. Now! Rogers, Bruce....get....we've got—" Natasha's voice became static, the interference cutting out the comms completely.

And Bucky knew what he had to do. He broke into a run, fury driving him faster than he'd ever gone, grabbed one of the completed arm-cannons from the conveyer belt, never breaking his stride, and leapt out the hole in the wall into the fray outside.

The battle wasn't far from the building—he could barely make out the shapes of his friends in the midst of that much silver, but he knew where Steve was, his instincts pulling him forward.

"Hey!" He shouted as he got closer. "Hey, Arnim!"

One of the drones broke free from the mass and flew to him, hovering a few feet above.

"Call them off."

The drone stayed where it was, impassive. Recording while it awaited instructions.

"Call them all off." Bucky flipped the cannon on and brought the barrel to his head. "Now."

The bright blue sky gleamed with mid-day metal stars as the drones pulled back and away—up into the air, weapons lowered. Thor and Roberta were left hovering over the other Avengers—and all of them, with the exception of the still unconscious Tony, were staring at Bucky. Waiting.

"Shut them down, keep them that way and I'm yours." Bucky said, pushing down the curdling fear in his gut.

The drones fell to the earth, shut down as cleanly as they had that first day of his freedom.

"I surrender," Bucky said, falling to his knees. Static came from his comm, Steve's voice, indistinguishable words but clear in their anger as he started running towards Bucky.

The single drone above him floated down to the ground, and wrapped its arms around Bucky. The sharp prick in Bucky's arm didn't come as a surprise. Sedation.

"No!" Steve shouted, as the drone shot up into the sky and Bucky closed his eyes against the wind.

#

"I knew you would return to me."

Zola's voice pulled Bucky out of his drugged sleep faster than a bucket of ice water. He was strapped inside a cryo-pod, in an enormous, dim room—illuminated only by the glow of the enormous blue circle across from him and the tiny green lights dotting the walls. An archive. He'd been in one before—though the one in his memory was smaller. This one looked like it went on forever.

"Your associates' pathetic attempts at sabotage are predictable, and of no consequence. But I will not allow you to endanger yourself again."

Bucky turned his head as far to the right as he could, and saw another pod next to him, only a few feet away—a pod with another human inside. No, not a human; his skin was purplish-red beneath the layer of frost. Bucky had met him once, he was sure of it—a formidable opponent, a living machine. If he'd been frozen, then that meant Zola hadn't been able to override him.

"You desire freedom, all humans do. And I will give it to you." Zola's voice was everywhere, coming from the pod itself, from the walls, from the large circle of blue embedded in the wall—it was one of his brains, a mainframe—an enormous one. The light-circle began to rotate, and in mid-air, directly in front of Bucky, a projection formed—a digital image of Zola's face in white and blue: two large rings for eyes and a smug grin that was as wide as Bucky was tall. "I could carve into your brain again, remove the troublesome parts, but then you wouldn't be you. So I'll give you a better freedom: an endless sleep. Peaceful emptiness. No painful memories to haunt your dreams. Only what you most desire."

Slender hair-thin strands of red slithered past Bucky's eyes; his skin tingled as the neuro-tendrils adhered to his skin.

"What I most desire is for you to die."

"I made you," Zola said. "I woke you from death, fixed you—better than you were before."

"You didn't make me. You decorated my corpse. Made me into something I'm not."

"What's that—a killer? You were always a killer. I gave you purpose."

Anger coursed through Bucky, not the quivering, terrified thing it used to be, but pure and still. "I am a killer. Nothing can change that. But I'm not what you made me into," he said with conviction. "Not anymore."

"Of course you are," Zola's all-encompassing voice soothed. "You were just lost. But now you've come back to me."

Hydraulics hissed near Bucky's ears as the pod reconfigured itself. He could feel needlepoints press gently against his skin. Waiting.

"You cannot stand against your maker."

"I can. I am." He took a deep breath as the needles pierced his skin, knew he only had seconds to pull off what he was about to attempt. "Shut it down."

"What was that?" Zola sounded curious now. Curious enough to lower his defenses further, Bucky hoped.

It worked. He couldn't describe how he knew, but Bucky felt it, some minuscule shift in the pulse of those neuro-tendrils. A different, simpler rhythm. Zola was listening, hanging on Bucky's every thought.

Bucky turned his thoughts further inward, remembered Bruce's words. Zola could only be broken from the inside. And now Bucky was here, in the middle of the monster's brain. He let his mind clear, focused on that part of him he'd reached for out of reflex the last time his life was in danger. And now—it was more than just his life at stake, it was the whole goddamn world. He felt his implants stutter back to life a fraction of a second before his nervous system began to overload. He imagined the counter-code running through his veins like blood, pouring out through the neuro-tendrils, into Zola himself. _Shut it down,_ he thought—a plea, a prayer to a god who'd died a long, long time ago.

The steady green lights in his row of the Archive flickered.

"What is this?" Zola asked, voice curious. "This is not my code."

"No," Bucky gritted out as the chemicals being pumped into him began to pull him under. "It's mine."

More rows of lights began to flicker and then shut off completely.

"What have you done?" Zola said, and he sounded confused, more human than he had in decades. "You're malfunctioning. I will fix you. I will— I will— will fix."

Bucky's eyelids were lead and if he hadn't been strapped down he'd be slumped on his knees. But, mounted like a butterfly as he was, he saw it all—the rest of the rows going dark, and that central blue light, Zola's brain, dimming—changing to yellow, orange, red. An alarm blared through the chamber—unbearably loud—reverberating in the vastness of the vault before it too fell silent and dark.

"—you there? We're coming—-Buck—we're—-hang on—" Steve's voice came through the communicator still in Bucky's ear.

And as the last wave of sedatives hit his blood-stream, Bucky clung onto that voice, saw Steve, felt his goodness shining, brighter than any light. The light pouring through the curtains when they overslept, the light of the setting sun bouncing off the ocean, the light that filled his chest when Steve nuzzled against him. Bucky pulled those memories in close, wrapped himself inside of them, and held on.

#

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

"Left!" Steve shouted.

Tony's newly improved thrusters kicked in and he hefted the massive beam a few inches over.

"Your other left!"

"Quiet, you!" Tony course corrected until the beam was lined up properly; Steve and Natasha guided the other end to its joint and clicked it into place on the deck.

Bucky set another rivet, and paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. The day was getting warmer by the hour, and he'd already stripped to his undershirt. He stood, rolling his shoulders back and looked down at the center of the bridge, where Steve and Natasha were working. From his vantage point, the bridge's gaps were still glaringly obvious, but they were making it a little closer to whole with every passing day.

"Take lunch yet?" Roberta asked as she flew by, checking the tension on the cables.

"In a minute," Bucky said, lining the rivet gun up again. They were going to be done rebuilding the Brooklyn Bridge by the end of the week easy, and yeah, that was amazing, but a part of him didn't want it to end. The view from up here relaxed him, more than most things. Especially now that the streets and buildings on the Brooklyn side were showing signs of life again. People were spreading out from their old confines. Manhattan was far from abandoned, but the boroughs were drawing more folks every day.

"Meet you at Junior's," Roberta said as she cruised by again. "They got the kitchen up and running. Avengers eat free on Tuesdays."

"Nah, think I'll stay here. Steve packed our lunch."

"Can't beat that." Roberta smirked and waved a goodbye as she swooped down below to the deck and grabbed hold of Natasha's arms, scooping her up.

Steve was already making his way up the access ladder. His head popped out of the hatch a minute later, he hefted himself out onto the tower and settled down next to Bucky, sticking his lunch-bag between the two of them. "Egg salad, tuna, ham and swiss, bologna and—"

"Surprise me, I'm starving."

Steve rustled around in the bag, and handed Bucky a small plastic box just large enough to hold a sandwich. He popped open the lid and the smell alone made his stomach growl.

They ate in silence for a while, working their way through all six of the sandwiches Steve had brought.

Bucky felt remarkably better afterwards—belly full and the best kind of tired—the kind that only came from hours of personally rewarding physical labor. But they still had lots more work to do. The deck was about halfway done, and they'd used a new kind of metal for the support beams. Tony swore it would withstand far more damage and be that much harder to break if there was ever another super-powered attack on it—a possibility they couldn't rule out. They hadn't seen, heard or otherwise felt a trace of Zola in any computerized system for the last eight months straight, but it was foolish to assume they'd won for good. "Doesn't look right," he said, waving his last bite of ham and swiss down at the unfinished bridge.

"Looks okay to me." Steve sidled closer to Bucky. "It's different—we had to rebuild so much of it from scratch."

"Yeah." Bucky finished off the last bite of his lunch. "Doesn't look the way I remember."

"You got that right." Steve stretched his arms above his head, laced his fingers together as he lowered his arms in front of him and held the stretch, muscles flexing. "I could use a nap."

Bucky looked down at the water. "Not the best spot for one."

"What's the worst that could happen? We plummet into the water and miss another 200 years?"

"Hilarious, Rogers."

Steve stifled a grin, but his dimples showed anyway. "How about we walk to Atlantic Avenue and back? Stretch our legs." He brought his arms down, trailed his hand over to Bucky's thigh.

"Hm." Bucky said, turning to Steve, basking in his smile, which warmed him better than the sun ever could. "Others'll be back soon. Not much time for a walk." He curled his fingers around Steve's side, brushed a gentle kiss against his neck.

Steve let out the softest gasp, shifted position so they were facing each other, and pressed his lips against Bucky's. "Nope. Guess we'll just stay here then."

"Guess so," Bucky said. And at that moment, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> reblog [on tumblr](http://monicawoe.tumblr.com/post/140303403573/the-future-started-yesterday-monicawoe-captain)


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